Washington Adventist Hospital -- Patient's Rights

Patient's Rights & Responsibilities

Washington Adventist Hospital accepts the following principles in its commitment to provide respectful care.

You have the right:

1. To know by name the physician, nurses and staff members responsible for your care.
2. To effective communication.
3. To a reasonable response to requests and needs for treatment or service, within the hospital's capacity, stated mission, and applicable law and regulations.
4. To receive respectful care with consideration of cultural, psychosocial, spiritual and personal values, beliefs and preferences that optimizes comfort and dignity.
5. To receive current, accurate, and understandable information from his or her doctor(s) about diagnosis, treatment, and prognosis.
6. To make decisions involving his or her health care in collaboration with his or her physician.
7. To give informed consent to all procedures and treatment to be rendered, and to have questions answered; and to refuse and/or to discontinue procedures and treatment and to be informed of the consequences of such a decision.
8. To access pastoral care or other spiritual services.
9. To participate (or have a designated representative participate) with the Patient Care Advisory Committee in the consideration of ethical issues that arise regarding his or her care.
10. When the patient is not competent to make decisions, the surrogate decision maker as allowed by law has the right to consent to or refuse care, treatment and services on the patient's behalf.
11. To prepare advance medical directives and appoint a surrogate to make health care decisions on the patient's behalf, to the extent permitted by law.
12. To have reasonable privacy during examination and treatment.
13. To receive the most appropriate and/or effective pain relief.
14. To have communications and records concerning treatment be maintained confidentially, in accordance with legal requirements, unless consent to their release is granted.
15. To have access to all information contained in the medical record.
16. To be informed of any human experimentation or other research/educational projects affecting his or her care or treatment.
17. If a transfer from the hospital becomes necessary, to receive an explanation of the reasons(s) for the transfer and any alternatives to the transfer.
18. To examine the hospital bill and have it explained, regardless of who is responsible for its payment.
19. The patient has the right to have his/her family or surrogate decision maker, as appropriate and as allowed by law, involved in care, treatment and service discussions.

If you or your family member has a concern about patient care or safety at Washington Adventist Hospital please speak to the Charge Nurse on your unit or Patient Relations at x5476. You may also contact the Joint Commission at 1-800-994-6610. You may access their website: www.jointcommission.org and click the link for complaints, or email them directly: complaint@jointcommission.org.

You in turn, have the responsibility:

1. To follow hospital rules and regulations.
2. To give cooperation and to follow the care prescribed or recommended for you by your physician, nurses or allied health personnel.
3. To notify your physician or nurse if you do not understand your diagnosis, treatment or prognosis.
4. To let the nurse and your family know if you feel you are receiving too many outside visitors.
5. To respect the privacy of other patients.
6. To accept your financial obligations associated with your care.
7. To advise your nurse, physician and/or Patient Representative (extension 5476) of any dissatisfaction you may have in regard to your care at the hospital.
8. To be considerate of the rights of other patients and hospital personnel, to assist in the control of noise and to follow the hospital's no-smoking, visitor and other policies.

The first thing that struck me about these patient's rights was the wording for the title. It states, Patients Right AND Responsibilities. Meaning that the patient has a responsibility here and is not only on the receiving end. The next thought I had was on the second point where patients have the right to effective communication. I am now interested in the daily operations of this hospital to know if they realize how difficult it is to essentially be promising effective communication.

It is also interesting to note the fact that the hospital stresses the patients responsibility to inform their caregivers of any dissatisfaction they are feeling during their stay. When reading the point about the financial obligation, I felt it was included to protect the hospital and not so much for the benefit of the patient...which is what patient's rights should be for, correct?

Last, I did not post in on here, but a Spanish translation could also be found on the same page.