CHPNA Legal, Ethical, and Professional Standards 2 — Questions and Answers
Question 1: What is 'informed consent' in healthcare?
- Signing any form before treatment
- A patient's voluntary agreement to a treatment after receiving complete information about risks, benefits, and alternatives (Correct answer)
- Permission from the family for all procedures
- A form signed only by physicians
Correct answer: A patient's voluntary agreement to a treatment after receiving complete information about risks, benefits, and alternatives
Informed consent requires that the patient receive complete information about proposed treatments and voluntarily agrees before any procedure or treatment begins.
Question 2: Which of the following is within the scope of practice for a hospice nursing assistant?
- Administering medications
- Assessing and diagnosing new conditions
- Providing personal hygiene care and reporting changes to the nurse (Correct answer)
- Ordering laboratory tests
Correct answer: Providing personal hygiene care and reporting changes to the nurse
Hospice nursing assistants are responsible for personal care, activities of daily living, comfort measures, and reporting observations to the supervising nurse.
Question 3: A patient revokes their hospice election. The nursing assistant should:
- Try to convince the patient to stay in hospice
- Notify the supervising nurse immediately and document the patient's statement (Correct answer)
- Contact the insurance company directly
- Ignore the request until the next visit
Correct answer: Notify the supervising nurse immediately and document the patient's statement
Patients have the right to revoke hospice at any time; the nursing assistant must report this to the nurse immediately so the care team can respond appropriately.
Question 4: What does 'scope of practice' mean for a nursing assistant?
- The number of patients a nursing assistant can see per day
- The legal and professional boundaries that define what a nursing assistant is permitted to do (Correct answer)
- The geographic area where a nursing assistant can work
- The hours a nursing assistant is allowed to work
Correct answer: The legal and professional boundaries that define what a nursing assistant is permitted to do
Scope of practice refers to the legally and professionally defined range of duties and responsibilities a nursing assistant is trained and permitted to perform.
Question 5: What is the purpose of the patient's rights document in hospice care?
- To list the hospice agency's fees
- To inform patients of their rights regarding care decisions, privacy, and grievance processes (Correct answer)
- To document the patient's medical history
- To authorize payment for services
Correct answer: To inform patients of their rights regarding care decisions, privacy, and grievance processes
The patient's rights document informs patients of their rights to participate in care planning, maintain privacy, file grievances, and make decisions about their own care.
Question 6: Which principle requires treating all patients fairly regardless of their background?
- Beneficence
- Autonomy
- Nonmaleficence
- Justice (Correct answer)
Correct answer: Justice
Justice is the ethical principle that requires fair and equitable treatment for all patients, regardless of their background, beliefs, or social status.
CHPNA Legal, Ethical, and Professional Standards 2
What is 'informed consent' in healthcare?