Preventing Elopement: Understanding Health Facility Policies - Essay Sample

Introduction

Policies are the laid down laws and regulations that adhere to the judicial or legal standards of a country. Policies vary depending on a company or the Department of specialization. These laws are put in place to ensure all activities done in an institutional setup are under the law. Also, these policies promote the ideas and vision of the founder(s) of a company. In health, elopement is the absence of a patient from the grounds of a health facility or inpatient unit without permission.

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There are two categories of an elopement as defined by the Department of mental health and addiction services. They include escape and unauthorized absence. Every patient admitted to the Department of mental health, and addiction services are under the policy of the Department. The policy states that the Department shall take responsibility for individual places in its inpatient facilities for treatment regardless of voluntary or involuntary status. Eloping from treatment is considered a severe offense since the interruption is detrimental to the patient. The Department of mental health and addiction services has the mandate to respond accordingly to any eloping instance.

There are procedures laid down to curb eloping. These procedures are as follows. Any person noticing any act of fleeing by patients is expected to report the incident to the head nurse of the unit. The nurse is needed to notify the police and physician in charge. The police should inform the chief executive officer of the facility. Secondly, the police of the Department shall administer a search together with a nursing staff unless circumstances of elopement deem the search inappropriate. Thirdly, if a patient is determined to have escaped the facility, the police from the facility shall issue a teletype and pursue legal action (Duffy & Hallahan, 2019).

Fourthly, for a voluntary patient, the physician determines the clinical status of the patient, and from it, the police choose whether or not to issue a teletype. If the patient is harmless, the police should not issue teletype. Fifthly, for the case of a patient in probation, the physician determines the clinical status of the patient and contacts the CEO. The CEO commands the issuance of a teletype. All probated patients eloped are teletype. Sixth, the police evaluate whether the measures used are warranted since it relates to the teletype process. The seventh procedure is that the police of the Department shall make and maintain systems regarding A WOLS. Eighth, both the nurse and the facility CEO shall access all updated information of the eloped patient to prepare a notification document.

Nine, the attending physician, the CEO, and the head nurse shall determine if external notifications are needed. When needed, elopement notice is issued to the family if the patient is above sixty-five years old or under 18 (Williams, 2017). Also, the Department of mental health and addiction service may file a missing report for a silver alert. The silver alert is when; patient posses risk to self and others, and in scenarios where there is a conservator of the person, the facility obtains consent to file the report. Tenth, depending on the hospital, any eloping is critical. Eleventh, the facility considers discharging the patient who has fled if; informal and voluntary status, voluntary status, emergency certificate, and probate court commitment, criminal court commitments, and psychiatric security review board. All these procedures and policies regarding elopement are essential both in the treatment of patients having mental issues and in protecting life outside the treatment facility.

References

Duffy, A., & Hallahan, P. (2019). Wandering behaviour and elopement in the nursinghome. British Journal of Healthcare Assistants, 13(1), 26-30. Retrieved from:https://www.magonlinelibrary.com/doi/abs/10.12968/bjha.2019.13.1.26

Williams, M. (2017). Interventions to Increase Staff Comfort Level Related toElopement (Doctoral dissertation, Carlow University). Retrieved from:http://search.proquest.com/openview/4bcef2f2a86c37a407223c139bc040ee/1?pq-origsite=gscholar&cbl=18750&diss=y