Individualized Patient Prescribing Omission

Ethics are “a system of moral principles and a branch of philosophy which defines what is good for individuals and a society” (BBC.com, 2014). According to Pollard (2015), the task of a moral decision is that of doing the right thing in a particular situation, is seeing what is right thing in the situation and laying hold of it. Therefore, in order to make the right decision, health care practitioners must negotiate the requirements of care and responsibility with their patients within the context of a relationship (Pollard, 2015). However, today, the problem is deep-rooted in the so called “evidence-based practice” which has become the standard to evaluate or measure collective group of persons with virtual disregard to individualized patient …show more content…
Lang et al. (2010) defined prescribing omission as “the omission of indicated medications with proven efficacy in patients with a significant life expectancy. Among affected population are people with cognitive and psychiatric disorders. A study conducted on hospitalized patients aged over 75 years (n=1,176; 510 with depression and 543 with dementia) identified that about 50% of the participants was treated with psychotropics, and analysis showed that the prescription of psychotropics was significantly associated with dementia (OR 1.4, 95% CI 1.3-1.9) and to depression syndrome (OR 1.7, 95% CI 1.3-2.1) (Lang et al., 2010). Nevertheless, taking the revised Beers’ criteria into consideration has been proven to resolve this problem (Lang et al., 2010). In the same vein, the use of biotechnology in the pursuit of human enhancement rather than to treat disease has also created ethical implications (Hotze, Shah, Anderson, & Wynia, 2011; Delaney & Martin, 2011; Wasson, 2011; Drabiak-Syed, 2011). Literature shows that majority of healthcare providers especially physicians prescribe “enhancement medication” at an alarming rate without consideration for the ethical and legal implications of this practice due to accompanied risk effects associated with these medications (Drabiak-Syed, 2011). Statistically, about 62% of physicians receive requests to prescribe interventions for …show more content…
When there is scarcity of medical resources such as capital, personnel, physical space, and medications, healthcare providers will have no option other than rationing in order to provide care to patients. At the same time, the criteria to allocate scarce resources must be evidenced-based, transparent, and not subject to bias (Shuman et al., 2012). However certain situation may put physicians and other health care practitioners into an ethical and legal dilemma, even if the allocation criteria are sound and