Consequences of Failure to Report on Patient's Safety, Quality Metrics, and Workload

Mike the Lab Technician
(Author’s name)
(Institutional Affiliation)
Mike the Lab Technician
The scenario involves Mike who is a laboratory technician in a hospital. He has regularly been arriving late for work and has been confronted about it by his supervisor. His work is in jeopardy, and he is on his last warning. His boss has threatened to terminate his contract should he arrive late to work again. On this day, he leaves home 20 minutes earlier than usual but despite this, there is an accident on his way that makes him arrive almost late. Upon arriving at the hospital, he notices a spillage and he faces the dilemma of whether to report it and be late for clocking in or ignore it and clock in to avoid losing his job. Both sides have repercussions, but this paper will concentrate on should he choose to ignore it and proceed to clock in. Reporting it would mean that he rushes to the front desk and report the issue. Housekeeping would be paged to attend to the matter but unfortunately, for Mike, it takes 3-5 minutes for them to arrive there. From the front desk, he calls his boss and notifies him that he is in the building but had to stop and attend to another matter. The supervisor understands and asks him to make sure that he compensates the time at the end of his shift.
Consequences for not reporting
Mike decides to ignore it and go ahead to clock as he cannot afford to be terminated as he is the sole breadwinner for his wife and their young child. Besides, he needs to finish a few things from yesterday that he was yet to accomplish. Moreover, he still needs to look at his assignment for the day so he assumes that the responsible party will soon notice the spill and clean it up ("Allied Health", 2016). After being assigned his duties for the day, he is sent to attend to a patient and gather their information. While collecting the data, he realizes that the patient was admitted to the hospital after falling in the lobby of the same hospital due to the spill that Mike had ignored. The patient is in a lot of pain and additionally appears to have broken her hip during the fall. She goes ahead to describe the incident and asks Mike how a hospital could be so irresponsible. She adds that she thought the hospital was a safe place free from accidents. She continues and says that she assumed there were programs responsible for the prevention of such accidents. It is clear that she is either angry or disappointed at the hospital staff.
The accident had an impact on the patient because as described she seems to have broken her hip in the fall. The health of the patient is now at risk because of something that could have been avoided. The scenario also states that the patient is in excruciating pain. His decision has also put the hospital at risk because if Mike decides to come clean and the patient discovers that it was avoidable, she can sue the hospital. The victim can also sue the hospital claiming that it is disorganized and putting the lives of healthy people at risk. Everyone is at risk of that spill because both staff members and visitors use the lobby so it could have anyone. Choosing to ignore the discharge has many consequences on Mike because if he decides to confess to the supervisor he could lose his job, wh...