Patient Values Norms And Standards

Values, norms, standards

Standards of Practice (SOP) addresses patient care during the nutritional care process. It consists of the minimum expected behaviour of the dietician regarding direct patient care. Standards of practice are necessary in dietetic settings in order to promote effective and correct practice and improves the services and ensures the desired outcomes.3 The Standard of Practice runs parallel with the nutritional care process. This process consists of four standards:

• Nutritional assessment: Assessing the condition of a patient in order to identify problem. This can be done through various steps, such as obtaining, verifying and interpreting data in order to provide the foundation for the nutritional diagnosis.

• Nutritional

• Utilisation and management of resources: Using resources as best as possible.

• Quality in practice: Constantly evaluating their own services and improve services where necessary.

• Competency and accountability: Accumulating CPD point in order to ensure life-long learning.

The values of these standards describes the minimum levels of practice and performance expected of the dietician, they provide a basic foundation for self-assessment and ensures consistency in the dietician’s work. It provides a description of the dietetic profession and the services only dieticians are allowed to provide. It serves as a platform for many research purposes and therefore ensures that dietetic practice is always up to standard, ensuring constant quality. It values the laws and regulation, ensuring that dieticians never commit misconduct and practice incorrectly in any dietetic setting.3

Ethical

Also the health care professions act, 1974 (Act no. 56 of 1974) states these rules.2 Every dietician has voluntarily adopted these rules in order to ensure professional practice and to set forth commitments and obligations of the health care professional to the public, profession, colleagues and other health care practitioners working with the dietician.

The Code of Ethics (as set forth by the ADA Board of Directors, House of Delegates and the Commission on Dietetic Registration on June 2, 2009) consists of various fundamental principles.

• The dietician must conduct themselves with honesty, integrity and fairness.

• The dietician must support and promote high standards of practice.

• The dietician must regard the health of the public as their highest priority.

• The dietician practices according to the laws and regulations applicable to their profession.

• The dietician practices professionally with objectivity and respect towards their clients and their clients’ opinions and choices.

• The dietician will not provide false or misleading information to clients or other health care