Why are ethics and compliance so important to the health industry…
because we are working with life saving and potentially life damaging medications!
Medical sales representatives are confronted with medical ethical dilemmas and decision making almost daily. This is the reason that the health products sales representative qualification and learnership includes, as one of its core competencies a course on health industry ethics and marketing codes.
What is Medical Ethics?
Ethics applied to medicine, healthcare and biomedical research is called ‘bioethics’, or ‘medical ethics’. In this fascinating discipline, science and philosophy come together to help healthcare workers and the public make better decisions. Bioethics debate and research also contribute to policy frameworks as well as laws that regulate the healthcare industry. In the healthcare industry we have a number of Acts, Regulations to the Acts, Codes and Guidelines which govern our practices in the healthcare industry.
Why are ethics important in healthcare?
Ethics is the ability to do things fairly, honestly and with respect. It means that you as the Health Product Sales Representative will have an intimate knowledge of what is fair, honest and respectful towards your customers, the HCPs (Health Care Practitioners) and patients as well as your fellow colleagues.
When working in the healthcare industry, it is important to understand that all decisions made by yourself and others in the profession may directly affect someone’s health and wellbeing, be that incorrect administration of a treatment, or sharing sensitive information about a patient to the wrong party or without patient consent. A breach of confidentiality of client information is not to be taken lightly and it may have serious consequences for the doctor/patient relationship and the doctor’s reputation.
Common situations where patient confidentiality is breached can be some of the following:
- Lifts and Canteens
- In hospital wards
- Patient Notes
- Computers, faxes, and Printers
It may also have serious consequences for you as a health products sales representative if you do not stick with the National Health Act, the Medicines Act as well as with the Codes discussed in our Health Industry Ethics and the Marketing Code Course. The consequences of breaking patient confidentiality are not unique to breaking any other points in terms of the Marketing Codes. If you breach any of the points in the Marketing Codes or its guidelines the consequences are serious.
What are ethical violations in healthcare?
You will be confronted with things that seem easy and straight forward, (and makes business sense) yet it may be things that you ought not do, ethically speaking. A few examples of these things are:
- Promote a medicine before it is registered with SAHPRA
- Pay the HCP for a visit or to call on them
- Include the HCPs spouse in the invitation to a meeting
- Assist the patient to get the medical aid to pay for their medicine before you have the signed patient consent form
The foundation for the law
This is the place of bioethical principles – guidelines that are broadly acceptable among the religious and the nonreligious and for persons across many different cultures. Although the top four principles, which have been used in medicine for centuries, are not considered absolutes, they can serve as powerful action guides in clinical medicine.
These principles are:
- the principle of autonomy;
- the principle of Justice;
- the principle of non-maleficence
- and the principle of beneficence.
The philosophical frameworks (of which ethics is one branch) essentially help to give us the ‘why’ behind the laws and policies. That is how it works in an ideal setting – but if you examine history you will quickly find that the laws are not always ethical at all. Sometimes, laws are not able to tell us what is right or wrong. Sometimes, you have to look to philosophy to argue why a certain action is right. In times where technological advances in medicine are progressing at an ever-increasing rate and developments are appearing for which no current legal framework exists – then what? That’s when it’s time to make sure you are proficient in ethics!
A helpful thinking process when you are not sure what to do could be the following:
Before you ACT – ASK the following questions:
- Is this legal?
- Is this against company policy or the Codes?
- Could this cause harm or loss to anyone?
- If everyone I knew saw me, would I feel uncomfortable?
Patient’s Rights (Ethical Dilemmas)
As part of the healthcare industry the debate is often who then is actually our customers? Is it the patient, the HCP or is it both?
As a health products sales representative in the healthcare industry, you need to be able to protect the rights, firstly of the patient and then of the HCP. Your behaviours need to promote and protect customers’ rights. Laws and professional codes of conduct are in place to help you as the health products sales representative to do this.
Patient privacy is one of the most important pillars in the practice of medicine.
Although you as the health products sales representative are not the HCP working and may not directly be working with patients you may find yourself in a position where you are privileged to patient information. It is here where you need to know how to deal with this information, how to get patient consent and what the possible consequences are if not dealt with correctly.
Informed consent is the process of communication between the HCP and the patient that results in an agreement or the signing of an informed consent form. With this form the patient gives permission to the HCP to divulge appropriate information about the patient themselves when appropriate.
You as the health products sales representative need to promote patient confidentiality and conduct your own behaviour such that confidentiality of patient information is preserved.
So, if you are a Transformation, HR, Sales or Marketing manager and you would like your staff or your graduates to step up their careers in health industry ethics whilst being a health products sales representative, consider implementing an audit-ready hassle free learnership or graduate development program.