Question

You are the hospital administrator for a county hospital, which is funded in a large part by that county's property taxes. You discover that you have an indigent patient who has been mistakenly admitted as an inpatient to the hospital strictly for dialysis treatment. The hospital does not, as a general practice, provide only dialysis treatment for patients. This is beyond the scope of the hospital's mandate and is therefore, an inappropriate use of local property tax funding.

If the indigent patient is discharged from the hospital and dialysis treatment is terminated, the patient will become toxic and experience severe physical consequences, even death. However, if the patient is kept in the hospital for purposes of dialysis treatment only, the hospial must assume the burden of the patients debt, without revenue to cover the associated cost.

Evaluation of alternative solutions.

Solution chosen and how to implement it with the stakeholders.

Conclusion and reflection of this process.

Answer 1

(A) EVALUATION:-
                -In all organizations, decisions have to be made and it is important to have an effective decision-making model to utilize.
                -Decision-making becomes complicated when individuals are met with legal dilemmas whereby alternative actions may result in serious consequences.
                -In the given scenario, an indigent patient has been admitted to a hospital by accident for dialysis treatment.
                -As the hospital is funded by property taxes and does not only provide dialysis treatment, the administrator needs to make a decision as to retain the patient and let the hospital bear the burden of the healthcare costs incurred or reject the patient and run the risk of life-threatening health consequences for the patient.
                -This case will evaluate the legal dilemma and discuss the decision which the hospital should make. In this case, the hospital should opt to accept the patient because the benefits of this decision outweigh the costs

(B) ALTERNATIVES AND CONSEQUENCES:-
                -There are two alternatives which the hospital administrator can take.
       (a)The first alternative is to keep the patient :- by keeping the patient, the hospital will need to incur higher costs. This is because it is inappropriate to use the local property tax funding to cover the cost of patients solely requiring dialysis treatment. As such, this may hinder the hospital’s ability to provide for and cover the healthcare costs of other patients. However, the positive side of this decision is that the indigent patient would be able to gain access to the necessary healthcare assistance required.
       (b) second alternative is to discharge the patient.
       -by discharging the patient, the cost would be that the patient would become toxic and experience severe health consequences, including death, if he is unable to gain access to the necessary healthcare speedily. However, the advantage of such a decision would be that the costs incurred by the hospital would be minimized. Hence, the hospital would be in a better position to provide for the healthcare of other patients.
       -By weighing the costs and benefits of the two alternatives, it can be argued that the costs of discharging the patient far outweigh the benefits.
       -This is because the life of an individual is priceless and cannot be measured in terms of monetary costs incurred.
       - It would be immoral for an organization to reject offering services to someone in need, especially when the organization is still in the position to provide the services and when the consequence of rejecting the individual would result in the death of the person.

(C) CONCLUSION:-
               - the decision which the hospital administrator should make is to keep the patient in the hospital because the benefits of this decision far outweigh the costs.
               - The hospital cannot make up for any losses to the patient should the patient die or suffer serious health consequences due to the hospital’s refusal to keep him.