Nursing Ethics: Healthcare Costs And End-Of-Life Care

Nursing Ethics: Healthcare Costs and End-of-Life CareNameAcademic InstitutionCourse Number and NameInstructorDue DateNursing Ethics: Healthcare Costs and End-of-Life CareEnd-of-life care is becoming an increasingly important area of discussion within nursing due to technological advancements that have the ability to prolong life (Karnik & Kanekar, 2016). This can result in ethical uncertainty regarding treatment options for patients with terminal prognoses. Essentially, this would involve the decision to continue or terminate life support for patients who are not expected to recover. Nurses and physicians are required to abide by the wishes of the patient, but the issue arises when the patient is incapacitated and has not directly appointed anyone to act as a proxy (Karnik & Kanekar, 2016). There is also the issue of healthcare costs, as prolonging one’s life via medical technology and assisted care would also accrue costs that may affect the patient’s family (Bolt et al., 2019). As such, the following paper explores the ethical issue of healthcare costs end-of-life care, providing an overview of how nurses can make the best ethical decision when faced with this