Patients Bill of Rights at Sacred Heart Hospital

Sacred Heart Hospital is a Catholic hospital with a number of locations. Their Patient Bill of Rights contains twenty-eight statements that apply to any and every patient who walks through their doors. The hospitals website makes it very simple to find these rights and they are clearly states. Immediately following the list of rights, however, is a list of six responsibilities of the patient titled Your Responsibilities. It is nice the web-page lists both the patients rights and patients responsibilities in such a easily found location in order to remove confusion. But because one follows immediately after the other and on the same page, you question how much Sacred Heart is trying to help or how much they are backing away from. Although both should be listed and easy to find, possibly they should be presented as two separate issues. The Patients Bill of Rights should be presented on its own. The listing of the patients responsibilities should possibly be presented preceding or following the hospitals rights, if it cannot stand alone.

Although this particular Bill of Rights seems thorough and professional, the language is somewhat technical and uses a vocabulary that may be simple to some, but could be confusing and the reading vocabulary too difficult. It would be possible to simply and more clearly state the rights without losing any meaning. The language assumed you are familiar with being a patient and the lingo attached to patient type circumstances.

The Bill of Rights states procedures, laws, and protocol that you are entitled too. But it ends there and so the patient must figure out what these procedures, laws, and protocol are. For example, right number eight states the patient has the right to the professional standards of the hospital. But what are the professional standards of Sacred Heart and how can I find out about them? It is understandable that they could not put all this information directly into the Patients Bill of Rights, it would simply get too long and bog down the reader. But when a patient is looking through and one right in particular applies to them or they have a question the page should list how they can find more information, be it through a hyperlink or what have you.

The Patients Bill of Rights for Sacred Heart Hospital is well put together and what you would expect to be put out by a professional organization. It is, however, almost overly professional in that it seems to come more from the hospitals point of view than from the patients.