Impaired Health Care Professionals
Introduction to impaired Health Care Professionals. History and current state of Impaired health care professionals.
Sample Answer
Impaired Health Care Professionals
Impairment of a health care professional is the lack of ability to practice in compliance with agreed level because of substance use, abuse, or addiction. Substance abuse leads to unfavorable social and professional repercussions. Substance use disorder can be spilt into substance abuse and substance addiction (Smith & Campbell, 2020). Approximations show that about ten to fifteen percent of health professionals are likely to abuse drugs as well as alcohol at some time during their career.
History and Current State of Impaired Health Care Professionals
The Impaired health care givers have come to be the center of attention of countless lawful events. The issue of professional deterioration was raised in the year 1999 instantly after the National Institute of Medicine issued a report, which was entitled medical inaccuracy (Smith & Campbell, 2020). It was clear from the report that almost 100,000 deaths of patients yearly were because of errors created by the medical employees (Smith, 2019). It is at this point when the issue of impaired health care professionals was made public. After the American Medical Association’s Council published about The Sick Physician on Mental Health in year 1973, Americans accepted and became conscious of health care professional deterioration (Smith & Campbell, 2020). The report proposed that physicians were burdened with diseases of impairment, essentially drug and alcohol addiction.
Currently, psychiatric disorder, which is a condition of impairment, exists in many health care professionals. Laws have been made which help the impaired health care professionals to receive required treatment rather than being punished for not meeting the required level of results during their practice due to their medical illness (Smith & Campbell, 2020). Before the Sick Physician report, impaired health care professionals were seen as bad people, with no impairments who required punishment (Smith, 2019). According to the modern view, impaired professionals are individual with impaired conditions with rights and protection under the law who require treatment for their illness.
References
- Smith, A. M. (2019). Management Strategies to Address the Substance-Impaired Healthcare Professional in the Workplace.
- Smith, A. M., & Campbell, D. G. (2020). Strategies to Address Substance-Abusing and Substance-Impaired Healthcare Professionals. International Journal of Applied Management and Technology, 19(1), 8.
