Legal and Ethical Issues in Healthcare Management 4

Legal and Ethical Issues in Healthcare Management

Decisions about treatment majorly rely on the mental and medical competence of the patient. With enough competencies, the patients can make logical decisions regarding their treatment and demonstrate that they understand the consequences of the decisions that they are making. Mental competency refers to the ability of a patient to choose the treatment method that they wish to receive from the healthcare practitioners (Dornan et al., 2015). It is a demonstration of mental capacity and consciousness regarding decisions that are related to medical treatment. A patient with mental competence will demonstrate their awareness by making medical treatment choices that will result in a satisfactory outcome. The decision made will help in improving the quality of their life. Medical competency, on the other hand, refers to the ability of a patient to demonstrate consistency in their medical choices for treatment (Dornan et al., 2015). The patient should be able to demonstrate that they understand the consequences of the medical decisions that they make. A patient that consistently falters on their treatment choice, and does not appreciate the different levels of the healing process demonstrates that they are medically incompetent.
It is essential to have an understanding of the distinctions between mental and medical competency because they help in the determination of the outcome of a treatment process. A patient may have the mental capacity to make their choices regarding the treatment method.

However, in making their choices, the patient has to be medically competent. They have to demonstrate that they understand the consequences of the treatment choice that they are making. Both mental and medical competencies are essential in determining the quality of care that a patient will be given by a health practitioner.

References
Dornan, J., Kennedy, M., Garland, J., Rutledge, E., & Kennedy, H. G. (2015). Functional mental capacity, treatment as usual and time: magnitude of change in secure hospital patients with major mental illness. BMC research notes, 8(1), 566.