CNA Chapter 3

Ethics

The knowledge of right and wrong

Laws

Rules set by the government to help people live peacefully together and to ensure order and safety

Omnibus Budget Reconciliation Act (OBRA)

A law passed by the federal government that includes minimum standards for nursing assistant training, staffing, requirements, resident assesment instructions, and information on rights for residents

Minimum Date Set (MDS):

A detailed form with guidelines for assesing residents in long-term care facilities

Residents’ Rights

Numerous rights identified in the OBRA law that relate to how residents must be treated while living in a facility: they provide an ethical code of conduct for healthcare workers

Informed Consent

The process in which a person with the help of a doctor, makes informed decisions about their healthcare

Neglect

The failure to provide needed care that results in physical, mental, or emotional harm to a person

Negiligence

Actions, or the failure to act or provide the proper care for a person, that result in unintended injury

Malpractice

Injury to a person due to professional misconduct throuigh negligence, carelssness, or lack of skill

Abuse

Purposeful mistreatment that causes physical, mental, or emotional pain, or injury to a person

Physical Abuse

Any treatment, intentional or not that caues harm to a person’s body

Psychologial Abuse

Emotional harm caused by threatening, scaring, humiliating, intimidating, isolation, or inulting a person, or treating him as a child

Verbal Abuse

The use of spoken or written words, pictures, or gestures, that threaten, embarrass, or insult a person

Assault

A threat to harm a person, resulting in the person feeling fearful that she will be harmed

Battery

The intentional touching of a person without their consent

Sexual Abuse

Nonconsensual contact of any type

Financial Abuse

The improper or illegal use of a person’s money, possesions, property or other assests

Involuntary Seclusion

The seperation of a person from others against the person’s will

Sexual Harassment

Any unwelcome sexual advance or behavior that creates an intimidating, hostile, or offensive working environment

Substance Abuse

The repeated use of legal or illegal substances in a way that is harmful to oneself or others

Ombudsman

A legal advocate for residents in long-term facilities who helps resolve disputes and settle conflicts

Confidentiality

The legal and ethical principle of keeping information private

Protected Health Information (PHI)

Information that can be used to identitfy a person and relates to the patients condition, any health care that the person has had, and payment for that healthcare; examples include a person’s name, address, telephone number, social secuirty number, email address, and medical record number

Electronic Health Records (EHR)

An electronic version of a patient’s medical record that can be shared between healthcare organizations; includes information such as medical history, diagnoses treatment plans, medications, immunization records, vital signs, measurements, and imaging test, and laboratory results

Residents’ Rights

Numerous rights identified in the OBRA law that relate to how residents must be treated while living in a facilitiy; they provide an ethical code of conduct for healthcare workers

Workplace Violence

Verbal, physical, or sexual abuse of staff by other staff members, residents, or visitors

False Imprisonment

The unlawful restraint of someone that affects the person’s freedom of movement; includes both the threat of being physically restrained and actually being physically restrained

Advance Directives

Legal documents that allow people to decide what medical care they wish to have in the event they are unable to make those decisions themselves

Living Will

A document that outlines the medical care a person wants, or does not want, in case the person becomes unable to make those decisions

Durable Power of Attorney for Health Care

A signed, dated, and witnessed legal document that appoints someone else to make the medical decisions for a person in the event they become unable to do so

Physician Orders for Life-Sustaining Treatment (POLST)

A medical order that specifies the treatment a person wishes to receive, not what he wishes to avoid, when he is very ill; decisions are based on conversations between the patient and his healthcare providers

Do Not Resuscitate (DNR)

A medical order that instructs medical professionals not to perform cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR) in the event of cardiac or respiratory arrest

Cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR)

Medical procedures used when a person’s heart or lungs have stopped working

Do Not Intubate (DNI)

A medical order that tells medical professionals not to place a breathing tube in a person

Do not hospitalize (DNH)

A medical order that states that a person should not be sent to a hospital for treatment; treatment, however, is continued where the person is residing