Dynamics of Ethics
There are many times when changes to policies and procedures need to be implemented. There are many reasons for the changes to occur. Some changes are a result of process improvements. Some changes are the result of poor planning. Changes need to be implemented in order to correct the damage that had been done with the poor planning. However, most of the time, changes come from ideas that individuals have on how to make something better and more efficient. This paper is going to detail a change that is occurring within a care facility in Florida and how those changes can affect the people involved.
An adult-care facility is going to start implanting identity chips into Alzheimer’s patients approximately in August of 2007. Alzheimer’s Community Care in West Palm Beach will implant radio frequency identification chips of patients of Alzheimer’s. If the patient is deemed competent, he or she will need to give consent to the implantation. If the patient is not competent, the patient’s family will need to give consent.
Before implanting chips into Alzheimer's patients, if a patient happened to wander out of the care facility and was found by an individual and that individual took the patient to the hospital, there was a chance that the patient would not know his or her name, medical history, family members, or where he or she lived. With the chip implantation, if this were to happen, the hospital can scan the patient’s forearm and obtain the patient’s name, address, and medical history.
The chip is implanted under the skin of the patient’s right forearm. The chip itself is just slightly bigger than a grain of rice. The chip will contain a 16 digit number that is unique to each patient. This number, when scanned within a hospital, will link to the patient’s medical records.
According to Mary Barnes (ABC News, 2007, p.1), the president and CEO of Alzheimer's Community Care, “the RFID chips, manufactured by VeriChip Corp., provided the best means...