Patient safety is very critical. Health care providers should therefore strive to ensure that the health of the patient is always safeguarded. This can be done by being responsible, following laid down procedures, and hence reducing the instances of negligence, which in the end can lead to injury, or death of the patient.
To safeguard the health of the patients, the government came up with a The Patient Safety Protection Act. Ethics principles are rules and values that guides the nursing profession (Myers, 2012). However, some applications of the ethic principles have resulted in population health disparities. Population health disparities are differences, which are preventable in the burden of violence, injury, disease or opportunities to attain optimal health mainly experienced by the socially disadvantaged population (Salas & Frush, 2013).
Different ethics principles on the issue of patient safety has resulted in a number of population disparities. First, the respect for autonomy principle, which allows a person to make his or her own decisions and their decisions to be respected by the health profession. It is evident that some patients may abuse this principle and make decisions, which may have a negative impact on their health making it difficult for the caregiver to guarantee their safety.
The principle of no maleficence states that the health care givers have to remain competent in their field to avoid injuries or suffering to the patient. It is evident therefore that those nurses who follows this are able to protect their patients against abuse through taking proper patient safety measures leading to better health as opposed to those who don’t hence creating disparities.
The ethic principle of justice ensures that the health care givers remain loyal, dedicated, truthful and fair to their patients in order to ensure their safety is safeguarded (Benjamin & Curtis, 2011). This ensures that there is no negligence on the part of the health care provider. In addition the ethic principle for paternism where care giver believe on what’s best for their patient either by withholding information that have undesirable effects can be taken as a safety measures and leads to better health outcomes hence creating disparities.
