Ethics in the Workplace

You are a member of the senior hospital administration. You become aware of a problem involving a long-time and well-respected employee, as well as the supervisor of said employee.

The employee in question is a social worker; a very competent and very conscientious professional. His wife has recently suffered a stroke with significant residual neurological deficit. This has resulted in the necessity that the social worker take days off to care for her; come in late or leave early to take her to medical, physical, or occupational therapy appointments; etc.

It is thought that, because of these demands on his time—and the taxing emotional overlay of dealing with the critical illness of a loved one, while simultaneously dealing with patients and families in similar situations—that his charting fell behind. In fact, it was discovered that he was writing social work notes 1–2 days after the fact, back-dating the notes, and placing them in the patients chart between notes of the same time frame as the date on the note.

When the social worker’s immediate supervisor became aware of this, she told him that such behavior must stop immediately. Given the circumstances, however, she opted to take no further action, did not document this in his personnel file, nor did she advise her superiors.

Other members of the staff became aware of this, and someone reported it to the CEO via a “Tell Us About Problems” Dropbox.

You have been assigned to address these multiple issues of ethics, standards of conduct, truth, and fairness. Also describe what concepts of change management theory you would apply in this situation. Describe your answer in detail, write in a response to each case scenario. Your Journal entry should be at least 500 words.