BUS FPX 3121 Assessment 3 Strategic Change Management Plan

Strategic Change Management Plan

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BUS FPX3121

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Effective policies, ethical leadership, and frequent safeguarding of patient rights are the basis for healthcare management. Communication breakdowns or administrative errors may result in serious ethical issues and legal problems. In the case of Michael in Brookside Hospital, the lack of a verification process and communication has played a part in affecting patients’ autonomy and family rights. This strategic change management plan will provide an analysis of the ethical conflict, identify the most appropriate decision maker, identify the stakeholders, and suggest solutions to the problem identified.

Defining the Problem and Ethical Conflict

Michael is 40 years old and currently an opioid addict, and has uncontrolled diabetes. He was rushed to Brookside Hospital, where he suffered from multiple injuries as a result of a severe car accident that required surgery. In one of the procedures, he ended up in a coma and had to be placed on a ventilator. Tifania was legally married to Michael and was on the Emergency Contact List. However, the hospital did agree that his father, Chris, would be able to make decisions about his health as he was physically present in the hospital.

As a result, Tifania had no medical information provided and was not consulted about any crucial decision with regard to the treatment of her husband. There was an ethical dilemma in this case over patient autonomy, justice, and an unambiguous medical decision-making approach. His wishes were not discussed or confirmed before a treatment decision was made, although Michael made it clear his feelings were that he was very against more long-term life support.

Identification of Decision-Maker

Tifania was Michael’s first call medical decision maker because she was his legal wife and was provided as his emergency contact with the hospital. The marriage was nonetheless valid as the couple had been living apart and she continued to pay financial and insurance aid. In the majority of U.S. healthcare decision-making regulations, such as Florida statutes, the legal spouse is considered to be the first person to make healthcare decisions when an individual is unable to make them (American Medical Association, 2025). The hospital erred in entrusting Chris with the ability to make decisions, and he had no way of showing that he was correct because Michael and Tifania were divorced.

Failure to verify patient records administratively may result in severe effects on the families and patients. In 2021, a patient’s life was taken on the basis of a wrong identity in the United States, where the wrong family members were contacted by the hospital staff. Likewise, the wrong family used mistaken identity in Peace Health Southwest Medical Center to make end-of-life decisions for a patient on life support in Vancouver (Staff, 2024). An appropriate checking system would have made sure that Tifania was involved in the argument over the treatment and life support of Michael.

Internal and External Stakeholders

The hospital administration and physicians, nurses, and the hospital ethics committee are the internal stakeholders in the case of Michael. These are people who are tasked with ensuring that medical decisions are made in regard to the ethical norms, legal requirements, and institutional policies. The hospital administration should have in place procedures that define next-of-kin authority over surrogate decision-making prior to surrogate decisions. The input of nurses and physicians is also essential, keeping in mind that both are working with families and making sure that the choice of treatment will be connected to the preference of the patient.

Ethics committees may also provide advice when issues of conflict between family members or concerns about ethics arise when interacting with patients (Sperling et al., 2026). The majority of the cases regarding end-of-life, over 70%, are settled by means of hospital ethics consultation. If these internal stakeholders had not performed a close review of the confession documents, then Chris would not have been allowed to make medical decisions on his own.

External stakeholders are law enforcement, patient advocacy organizations, and the attorneys representing family members. They participate to hold the healthcare organizations accountable in their healthcare decision-making process and in the application of policies in the healthcare arena. In an indicative fashion, lawsuits and cases in healthcare matters that have been previously prosecuted by the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) on behalf of a family or patient have involved legal disputes in healthcare rights and access to medical information (American Civil Liberties Union, 2024).

Likewise, legal support to family members is available from other advocacy organizations, such as the National Center of Medical-Legal Partnership (NCMLP), where hospitals refuse to recognize authorized decision-makers or access medical records (Hamilton, 2023). These are the external stakeholders that play an important role in safeguarding patients’ autonomy and ensuring that the healthcare organizations meet legal and ethical requirements.

Difference between Ethical Principles and Non-Moral Concerns

In the case of Michael, the moral principles that were implicated were autonomy, beneficence, and justice. Autonomy is a recognition of the patient’s right to make decisions about his or her care. Michael had already told me that he didn’t want to be supported on the machine, but I did not get confirmation from him before I made my decisions for treatment. Beneficence is a duty of the healthcare industry to look after the patient in the best interest of the patient by providing for his or her health and safety, and preventing harm. Fairness is justice in health care practices and decision-making (Cheraghi et al., 2023).

The hospital had prevented Tifia from being part of the decision-making process, and denied a fair decision to the member of the family who had the right to make a decision. The moral issues would be useful to health care professionals in making complex decisions involving incapacitated people. This hospital has no moral issues, only administrative, non-documentation, and non-communication issues. These are not moral values, but working facilities that can result in extreme consequences if not managed properly. Using the same example, if one of the research projects conducted by the Joint Commission is used, there was a lack of understanding between the caregivers when exchanging patients with each other, with 80% of the most critical medical errors being attributed to this lack of understanding (Alder, 2025).

Documentation is a case in point for the scenarios in which hospitals made poor decisions to go with the wrong people in the family because of poor documentation. Another example of this is the case of Indi Gregory (2023) in the United Kingdom, where the parents disagreed with the hospital’s decision to provide further life support for the child in Court. However, with conflicting views on whether the treatment is beneficial to the patient or not, there were some ethical concerns raised regarding the treatment of the case (Archard et al., 2023). These examples present how procedural errors may become an ethical dilemma, which is eroding patients’ and their families’ rights to exercise their rights.

Analysis of Several Options

Several possibilities might have allowed them to bypass the ethical quandary and malpractice of the administration with Michael. One thing the hospital could have done would have been to ensure that the legal paperwork was verified prior to the medical decision-making process by Chris. An investigation of the next of kin with legal papers would have helped to prevent the confusion. This is the example of a Georgia woman, Angela Adriana Smith, who was kept alive on life support via her family’s confusion over who held legal authority over her and state law, not by her family. (Reproductive Freedom Caucus, 2025).

The other way was for the hospital ethics committee to have been involved in the controversy between Chris and Tifania. Ethics consultations are intended to consult on a complex case and make sure that the treatment meets the ethical standards and patient preferences (Humphrey et al., 2022). The third possibility would have been to take legal advice from the court and appoint a formal medical guardian if the surrogate authority was in doubt.

The case of Helga Wanglie is evidence that the courts can step in and impose a guardian and determine the proper process of treatment when there is a clash between the parties on whether to continue life support (Center for Practical Bioethics, 2021). All of these would have facilitated the processes the hospital is required to undergo and would have ensured that the correct person was identified to make the decision for Michael’s treatment, so that it was in line with the legal requirements.

Conclusion

For Michael, there are a lot of ethical and administrative pitfalls to be found in the process of decision-making in hospitals. The hospital was not critical of the lawful decision-maker and prevented the patient’s spouse from having a serious discussion. The errors show the need for proper rules of communication, appropriate completion of paperwork, and accountability in health facilities. The hospitals should develop policies involving the authority of a person closest to the victim, the ethics committee, and effective communication with the family. Healthcare organizations can enhance these processes, thereby maintaining patients’ autonomy, complying with the law, and avoiding future problems.

Next Assessment: BUS FPX 3121 Assessment 4