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Healthcare Malpractice Case Study

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Healthcare Malpractice Medical Malpractice occurs when a healthcare professional provides substandard care, whether intentional or unintentional, causing injury or damage to a patient. In order to demonstrate medical malpractice, the plaintiff-patient has the responsibility of the burden of proof. The plaintiff-patient must prove a preponderance of evidence, or clear concise evidence of malpractice by supplying four elements of proof. First the plaintiff must show that the provider owed the patient a professional duty of care. Next the plaintiff has to demonstrate that the professional duty owed to them was violated or breached. After that the plaintiff must demonstrate that injury resulted from the said violation or breach. Finally, the patient …show more content…

The three most common reasons for this are: 1.The employer is responsible for the quality of care at their facility, 2. The employer earns revenue from the negligent individual and, 3. The employer is more finically and economically endowed, usually through liability insurance to afford the cost. There are however a couple of exceptions to vicarious liability. One such exclusion is the intentional misconduct of one patient toward another patient. In this situation the employer or employee had no contribution to the situation. Another exceptions that would apply would be in regard to independent contractors and, or their staff. They are not considered employees of the facility and are generally responsible for their own conduct, however this does excludes "Apparent Agency". Apparent Agency is a term used to describe the inability of a patient to distinguish the contractor from a regular healthcare worker of the facility. In this situation, the employer can still be held vicariously liable if there were no efforts to differentiate them from their own employees. An employer can also be held directly liable for an employee or contractors conduct under the legal concept of negligent selection and retention. This happens when the employer should have either ejected the individual for employment, carried out remediation for deficiencies, or discharged the individual from employment; this creates primary employer

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