Access, cost, and quality all play an essential role in the social determinants of health. Access refers to the availability of health care services and resources, including provi
Please review the case study The Patient’s Experience: What Were They Thinking? – Case for Chapter 4 Sheila K. McGinnis Thanksgiving weekend.
Tanya Martinez is looking forward to a busy holiday weekend entertaining her extended family. Tanya, 29, is a busy stay-at-home mom. She has a degree in Business Administration and recently worked in marketing for a major insurance company in the city. Married nearly 8 years ago, Tanya and her husband Alex, 29, have two children. Tanya quit working several years ago to raise their two children, 4-year-old Randy and 2-year-old Samantha. The Martinezes, a multiracial couple, lived in a large city in the Northwest, where Alex works as a skilled construction carpenter on high-rise commercial building projects. Tanya, Alex, and the kids celebrated the holiday with Tanya’s mom Deidra, a city engineer; dad Michael, a college professor; her brother, a computer engineer; and her sister-in-law, a nurse practitioner. On Friday, Tanya felt some nausea and intestinal discomfort, which she assumed was due to the Thanksgiving festivities. While Tanya was typically active and athletic, she had to skip her usual long-distance run. By Saturday, her condition had quickly worsened. She was weak, vomiting with periodic abdominal pain, and using cold compresses for a high fever. With Tanya running a 103 o fever Sunday, Alex stayed home with Randy and Samantha, while her parents Deidra and Michael took her to Urgent Care at a nearby full-service medical center. There she was quickly sent to the Emergency Department of the 400+ bed, Level 2 Trauma Center. Various lab tests and a CT scan showed an elevated white blood cell count, but no conclusive findings regarding her non-specific intestinal discomfort. So, after rounds of antibiotics and fluids for dehydration, Tanya was sent home without any prescriptions or further instructions. Tanya’s condition did not improve by Tuesday, and she was still experiencing a high fever plus nausea, bloating, and abdominal pain. The family brought Tanya back to Urgent Care, where she was sent to the Emergency Department again, and then referred to the main hospital for observation care. Observation care is a hospital outpatient category (even though patients stay overnight). It is controversial because it blurs the lines between outpatient and inpatient care, which often increases the patient’s financial liability (due to larger co-pays). It can also compromise clinical care delivery due to poorer coordination of care during observation stays ( Hagland, 2018 ; Society of Hospital Medicine, 2017 ). In the observation care ward, Tanya was seen by several hospitalists who each interacted with her for different purposes and with different questions. They conducted a variety of additional blood draws and lab tests to assess intestinal illnesses such as Crohn’s disease, inflammatory bowel conditions, or possible intestinal blockage. While observation care is intended to take 24 hours, or 48 hours maximum, in practice it sometimes exceeds 48 hours ( Society of Hospital Medicine, 2017 ). Tanya ended up in observation care for 5 days. Observation ward rooms are shared, and during Tanya’s stay, three different female roommates entered observation care and were admitted to inpatient care shortly thereafter. Tanya’s first roommate did not permit Tanya’s husband Alex to stay overnight with Tanya, so her mother stayed with her each night. Alex, their children, and family were frequent visitors during the 5 days. One evening when both parents Deidra and Michael were visiting Tanya, they noted two uniformed city police officers in the corridor talking to the in-charge nurse. The pair of officers soon entered Tanya’s room unannounced saying “We have to check your belongings,” without offering any explanation. Tanya and her parents complied but were unclear about what was happening. When one officer asked, “Does she have a history of drug abuse?” Deidra exploded, saying “What are you doing here? Leave right now!” The officer explained “We’ve had calls and a report there have been a lot of visitors and possible illegal drug activities here.” Next, the in-charge nurse burst into the room stating, “It’s a mistake, it’s not this room, it’s another room!” The officers were quickly redirected to search the nearby room occupied by a welltattooed white male. Frustrated by days with no clear diagnosis or treatment plan and angered by the allegation his daughter was using drugs, Michael demanded “I want to see the nursing supervisor now or we are leaving this hospital and will sue you!” When the RN supervisor arrived, Michael confronted him “Why did you call the cops on my daughter?” The supervisor wanted to check on what happened and scheduled a meeting for the next day after tempers had cooled. During a tense meeting with the RN supervisor the next day, her parents sought to transfer Tanya to a different hospital and leave “Against Medical Advice” (AMA). Informed that insurance might not cover an AMA transfer, and that another hospital might not accept an AMA, they “felt like hostages, with no options.” Unwilling to take the risk, the parents compromised that the hospital could transfer Tanya to the medical floor on in-patient status with a private room. Michael and Deidra also confronted the floor nurses, asking “Why did you send the police to Tanya’s room?” The nurses explained that “somebody had called the cops,” leaving the nurses to guess which patient it might be. A junior nurse admitted she had pointed the police towards Tanya’s room. Even Tanya’s observation ward
Reference:
Buchbinder, Sharon B., et al. Introduction to Health Care Management, Jones & Bartlett Learning, LLC, 2019. ProQuest Ebook Central,
Questions
1.
a. How do you suppose each of the actors, in this case, interpreted the situation?
b. What did they believe they were seeing, and how would they explain it?
2. What cognitive bias, automatic thinking, and stereotype may be affecting how each of the actors sees this situation?
3. Which ones of assumptions and attributions you have generated could the actors check or verify? Note: we know that assumptions must be tested.
4.
a. If you were on the hospital’s risk management committee with responsibility for preventing misunderstandings that could lead to a complaint or lawsuit, what concerns and what further questions for you have regarding each charge?
b. What would you recommend the hospital do differently?
5. Based on the information in the case, how do you assess the family’s three complaints?
Collepals.com Plagiarism Free Papers
Are you looking for custom essay writing service or even dissertation writing services? Just request for our write my paper service, and we'll match you with the best essay writer in your subject! With an exceptional team of professional academic experts in a wide range of subjects, we can guarantee you an unrivaled quality of custom-written papers.
Get ZERO PLAGIARISM, HUMAN WRITTEN ESSAYS
Why Hire Collepals.com writers to do your paper?
Quality- We are experienced and have access to ample research materials.
We write plagiarism Free Content
Confidential- We never share or sell your personal information to third parties.
Support-Chat with us today! We are always waiting to answer all your questions.
