If a patient cannot trust the healthcare system, they may be hesitant to bring up all their problems and this only hurts the patient. Healthcare professionals should always be honest with their patients even if the the truth is difficult to address. Healthcare workers are human and mistakes happen, it is their responsibility to be upfront about it and not ignore it. This honesty is a key component in building trust with the patient. Malpractice and negligence can often hurt the relationship between healthcare provider and patient because when substandard care is given it often hurts the patient. Not all bad outcomes are due to negligence as some things are unavoidable. Negligence and malpractice deal with breaking protocol or providing below standard levels of healthcare. Malpractice and negligence often result in litigation and further consequences. Litigation is court action as malpractice/negligence usually violate laws or patient rights. Honesty is important because it has been shown that less severe legal action is taken if healthcare professionals admit their mistakes rather than hiding them (Ho & Liu, 2011). For this reason, honesty is key for maintaining patient …show more content…
Holding healthcare workers accountable is a way to improve healthcare. By making them aware of their mistakes it can help grow and be more aware of their strengths and weaknesses. This can also be done by keeping records of negative results, sometimes a healthcare worker may not even realize how often they make mistakes and by bringing it to their attention they can correct the mistakes. More clearly defining scope of practice can also improve healthcare. While state licensure is required to even get the job, hospitals should continue to monitor their workers and try to clear up any reoccurring problems. This can be done by allowing workers to only take on responsibilities that they are extremely comfortable with. This can be done by assembling a versatile staff that compliment each others strengths and weaknesses. The healthcare system can be also be improved through teamwork. A patient's health is at stake so healthcare workers should be able to work together extremely efficiently. This can be done by not throwing new people into delicate cases together. For example, not assigning a surgical staff that have never worked together on an extremely intricate surgery. People need time to learn each other's work habits so the hospital should make sure it's staff have experience with each other. Lastly healthcare can improve through transparency, by being open