Ethical decisions in designing patient centered health interventions
The school-based program requires the healthcare provider to educate students on preventing and detecting mental issues. Health care providers can select some children who are already experiencing mental illnesses and offer more specialized treatment. However, the school management should always protect the students’ education records as stipulated by the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act (FERPA). The parties involved in the implementation of the educational programs should always strive to safeguard the privacy of the students. Health care professionals should also not disclose children’s medical assessment records to the school to prevent victimization and ensure student privacy. There are five main ethical principles which include truthfulness and confidentiality, autonomy and informed consent, beneficence, non-maleficence and justice. When designing healthcare professional-led school programs for mental health, health care professionals should ensure that health data and information related to the students are not assessed by unauthorized persons as stipulated by the confidentiality principle.
Patient-Centered Medical Home is essential in ensuring the delivery of quality mental health treatment. However, there are various ethical issues associated with the process. First, the healthcare provider and the patient might have divergent views on whether the patient should receive care at their home. Based on the autonomy principle, patients have total control over their bodies and the decision of the patient should be respected. Additionally, the beneficence principle demonstrate that health care providers should always do good. Health care providers should therefore demonstrate high level of skill and knowledge when providing home-based care. Home based care expose patients to risks including falls, failure to take medication and self-harm. Based on the non-maleficence ethical principle, health care providers should adopt risk management strategies and safety procedures to safeguard the patient from such risks.
Interpersonal psychotherapy (IPT) requires each patient to be treated uniquely based on their personal behavior and stressors. One of the major ethical issues raised in healthcare is the privatization of healthcare delivery which has been found to raise injustice issues especially for disadvantaged groups. Critics against Interpersonal psychotherapy (IPT) claim that health care providers divert public resources into private hands. Health care provider should therefore ensure that they uphold the principle of justice and equality when providing IPT.
Relevant health policy implications
The school-based mental health programs are regulated under the Mental Health Services for Students Act of 2020. The Act was an amendment to the Public Health Service Act to provide access to school-based comprehensive mental health programs. According to the Act, the school-based programs should be developmentally, culturally and linguistically appropriate. The programs should also incorporate positive-behavioral interventions and support. The Overdose Prevention and Patient Safety Act 2018 protect the confidentiality and non-disclosure of records relating to substance use disorder. Therefore, when carrying out any of the proposed interventions, health care providers should ensure confidentiality of patients’ records.
The Rise from Trauma Act 2019 stipulates the assessment and preventive assistance given to at risk populations with regards to trauma. People who have had traumatic experiences should be assessed for mental disorders and provided with the necessary assistance. The Act will be instrumental in delivering Interpersonal psychotherapy. The Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM 5) will be used to assess the patients for any mental illnesses.
The Lower Health Care Costs Act 2019 compels health care facilities to adopt technology and care processes that reduce the costs of treatment (Galvani et al. 2020). Health care providers should therefore ensure that the Patient-Centered Medical Home intervention is affordable to majority of mental health patients.