Professionalism in the medical field necessitates displaying specific characteristics, such as self-assurance, openness to new ideas, adaptability, intuition, and intellectual honesty and contemplation. To ensure patient safety and high-quality healthcare, doctors make decisions at all times. To increase both the quality and the reliability of the healthcare system whereby health practitioners operate, it is considered that they must possess the five fundamental healthcare competencies. The critical competencies listed include safe, effective, patient-centered care, timely, efficient, and equitable (Foley & Vale, 2017). Patient-centered care is crucial to good patient outcomes because it puts the patient’s needs at the center of the healthcare process.
In the given case of Mr. Smith, the type and nature of his clinical presentation are by themselves critical. Mr. Smith suffers from a bulged disc on his back. This presentation, if insufficiently handled, can progress to a worse prognosis, including lower-limb paralysis, spinal cord deformities, and even progressive infection. Recurrent pain after surgery and discharge are highly critical as this could signal an inadequately handled surgery procedure. It is necessary to do enough laboratory and imaging tests to rule out any sign of a surgery complication, as this has a relatively poor prognosis.
First, medical treatment must be safe. That’s a far cry from the “First, not harm” rule imposed on individual caregivers and then the “Always put the patient first.” There should be no more damage done to anybody by the healthcare system (Foley & Vale, 2017). Mr. Smith was a perfect candidate for the neurosurgery procedure after considering the safety considerations. In this case, the medical case was safe to proceed, thus safely done. Secondly, the quality of medical treatment must be effective for everyone. To be scientifically accurate, it must apply all of the most acceptable procedures available without underusing or overusing any of them. In Mr. Smith’s instance, a minimally-invasive treatment had to be carried out. Later, when a more invasive treatment was required, it was also done successfully. The effectiveness of these procedures was considered and properly carried out.
Third, the focus of health treatment should be fully patient-centered. All patients should be treated with dignity and awareness of the importance of their own unique cultural, social, and medical contexts. In today’s world, more individuals need long-term rather than short-term care. Unfortunately, after performing the minimal surgery, Mr. Smith still needs another, more deep surgery to get cured fully. The patient-centered principle was followed appropriately as just a simple minor surgery was the required surgery at first. This minor surgery was successful at first, and even saw Mr. Smith leave the hospital. There was no need to do anything rather than this minor surgery as indications needed that kind of management.
Fourth, patients must be given timely attention, which significantly contributes to their health. The system has a flaw if the waiting does not offer any information or allow the user to heal. Patients and caregivers alike get the advantages of prompt attention (Foley & Vale, 2017). The timely concept was greatly overlooked in Mr. Smith’s case leading to him spending ten days after returning from his first surgery. Had this concept been carefully addressed, Mr. Smith would not have stayed in the hospital for that length of time.
Fifth, the health care system must be efficient, always attempting to eliminate waste (and hence costs) of supplies, equipment, space, money, ideas, time, and opportunities. There was a continuous attempt to reach Dr. Jones, who was on vacation, to get him back to attend to his patient. As soon as Dr. Jones gets back, he immediately addresses the pending concern, and a solution is comfortably found. However, the efficiency concept is not fully respected as there is no second neurosurgeon present, unlike in the past. Had another neurosurgeon been around, the prolonged case of Mr. Smith would have been addressed sooner. Sixth, the distribution of health care must be equitable to all patients. Regardless of race, ethnicity, gender, or socioeconomic status, all people should access high-quality healthcare. Mr. Smith was attended to without evidence of discrimination of his race, ethnicity, gender, or socioeconomic status.
In order for the advantages of medical research to reach everyone equitably, we need improvements in health care delivery to match those in medical science. A typical scenario like that of Mr. Smith is not patient-centered. In Mr. Smith’s situation, the surgeon (Dr. Jones) does not tell the patient about his vacation intentions. Even though the procedure was anticipated to go without a hitch, careful communication was a must. The patient monitoring and subsequent care would likely have continued for the ten days as it did in this instance, with the added benefit of providing Mr. Smith and his family with some level of certainty and mental stability.
Health care professionals should always apply their core expertise in all cases. Existing measures, on the other hand, go into more depth in certain areas than others. The great majority of metrics focus on efficacy and safety, with a lesser number focusing on punctuality and patient-centeredness. It is simpler for customers to comprehend quality measures presented in these frameworks (Foley & Vale, 2017). Consumers are more likely to appreciate a wider variety of quality indicators when given a conceptual framework for doing so. The importance of effective, safe, and patient-centered treatment is evident when customers are provided a quick, simple explanation of the three categories. It is also helpful for patients to grasp how the metrics relate to their concerns about their treatment by grouping them into user-friendly versions of the three categories.
References
Foley, T. J., & Vale, L. (2017). What role for learning health systems in quality improvement within healthcare providers? Learning Health Systems, 1(4), e10025. Web.