Pay-for-performance in healthcare is a compensation system that rewards medical practitioners based on their performance against specific criteria, aiming to enhance the quality of patient care. Conversely, it also penalizes practitioners for poor outcomes, like when a psychologist doesn't receive financial rewards if her patient fails to quit smoking after sessions. This model can improve patient outcomes by motivating healthcare providers to deliver high
quality services in order to earn financial rewards tied to their performance metrics (Kyeremateng et al., 2019). However, there's a risk of encouraging patient dumping, where complex and high-risk patients may be sidelined because physicians prefer cases likely to yield rewards, resulting in negative patient outcomes. In such situations, nurses can apply ethical principles like non-maleficence, emphasizing the importance of minimizing harm. By doing so, nurses can advocate for physicians to admit and care for patients with complex medical issues. Nurses should also remind their colleagues of the Hippocratic Oath, which obligates healthcare professionals to prioritize saving lives (Kyeremateng et al., 2019). Patient dumping constitutes a significant breach of this oath, and nurses should take it upon themselves to reinforce these ethical principles within the healthcare team.
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