Law and Healthcare

A health care provider must understand many aspects of statutory duty. Duty is “a legal obligation imposed on one to conform to a recognized standard of care to safe guard the rights of others”. The standard of care is usually related to medical malpractice cases. Standard of care is defined as “the caution and prudence that a reasonable person would exercise under the circumstances or by appropriate authority for such situations”. This is mainly of importance because all physicians are expected to perform within the guidelines of this duty, and this standard or care changes depending on the circumstances. “Once the duty has been established, the plaintiff must show that it was breached by presenting evidence of the facts of the case and testimony from expert witnesses regarding whether the standard was met”(Showalter, 2014 p 139). Negligence results in the failure to meet this standard of care, and the jury usually decides if the defendant is guilty of committing a negligent act. Causation is an aspect of negligence. The defendant could be held liable for negligence if the act was considered to be foreseeable, and if the injury occurred from a breach of duty.

The Tort of Negligence put the claimant in the position to prove that the defendant owed to them a duty of care, the defendant breached that duty and the claimant must have suffered damages as result of that breach (Donoghue v Stevenson [1932] AC562).

Mrs. Helling filed a lawsuit against her ophthalmologist but during the trial the court ruled in favor of the defendants arguing that in ophthalmology it was not a standard of profession to perform routine glaucoma tests in patients under forty years of age. It is important to note here that the standards of the profession did require performing pressure tests if the patient’s complaints and symptoms indicated that the patient may be suffering from glaucoma. The defendants’ argument was that the test was given thirty days after the patients first complained of visual field problems. The jury decided in favor of the defendants and the court ruled accordingly. The Court of Appeals affirmed the lower court’s decision at which point the plaintiff petitioned for a review of the case. On appeal the Supreme Court of Washington reversed the judgment and ruled for the plaintiff stating that the defendants were negligent in not having administered the test at a time when the disease could have been prevented (LexisNexis, Helling v. Carey). The court’s decision was largely based on the argument that the test was simple and inexpensive and should have been administered considering the severity of the injury that resulted from the failure to give it. As suggested by Meltzer in the New England Law Review, two explanations to the decision in Helling are possible. First, that the court intended to abrogate the privilege of the

Medicare and Medicaid, created by the Social Security Amendment Act 1965, added Title XVIII and XIX to the Social Security Act. President Lyndon B Johnson was responsible for bringing about this change. Social Security Program started during the Great Depression of 1930s because of the stock market crash and bank failure, which wiped away the retirement savings of the Americans. Poverty rate among senior citizen exceeded 50% during this time. Social Security Act was created in an attempt to limit the five dangers of modern American Society. The Social Security Act was

A pivotal aspect of receiving quality medical care is being able to communicate your health concerns and have confidence and trust in your doctor, which is essentially the doctor patient relationship. Yet, this

Good communication between physician and patient is vital for a patient to make an informed choice regarding their care.

What action should President Obama take to attenuate the problem of drug abuse among expecting mothers during pregnancy?

An important concept that I learned from the HCA 6280 is tort of negligence which was totally a new subject to me. According to Harris (2008), plaintiff must prove four elements of tort which are “duty, breach of duty, causation, and damages” (p. 138) The plaintiff will be compensated only if he can prove that all the four elements of the tort are true to his case. I learned that duty means that physicians are required to provide patients with standard care and based on that responsibility they are required to provide standard care.Organizations have the legal responsibility to only employ staff who prove to have clinical competency. Otherwise, in case of an adverse event the organization or physician will be liable for breach of duty. Causation

RULE - Negligence occurs when an entity fails to exercise ordinary care to avoid injury to others. For a valid negligence claim the plaintiff must establish the following elements of proof: duty of care, breach of duty, cause in fact, proximate cause, and actual loss or harm. If the defendant can attack any of these elements they may successfully defend the negligence suit. The first element is establishing the presence of a duty of care owed by one party to another.

It's very imperative for all members of the medical team to know the different types of laws and the consequences, so that all practices and treatments are precise and professional. No one would want a doctor to work quickly and inefficient, so these laws regulate the health care. If these laws are broken the medical team could lose their licensure and practices. Patients will also want to keep their health records confidential. The laws that govern the medical field help protect patients confidentially and rights. The laws also protect medical teams from getting sued when helping in an emergency situation, such as CPR on a victim in a serious accident.

The recent case of Katie Thorpe who is 15, whose mother Alison Thorpe trusts that she should be granted a hysterectomy, as she has severe cerebral palsy and the mental capacity of an eighteen-month-old child. This has stirred the discussion over who should decide the sterilisation of mentally incompetent adults should be. Katie’s mother claims that a hysterectomy is in the best interests of Katie because she merely would not manage to handle the ‘aching, distress and embarrassment’ encompassed in menstruation. There are many cases in relation to this issue, however there is no instruction for when a parent is allowed to make that choice.

Negligence happens when a “person’s actions fall below a certain level of care. Negligence can involve doing something carelessly or failing to do something that should have been done.” (Fremgen, 2009, p. 35). In order to prove negligence the plaintiff must present the following elements: 1) duty to care, 2) breach of duty to care, 3) injury and 4) causation (Pozgar, 2012, p. 33). Duty to care is the first element which deals with the care that the defendant (physician) owes the plaintiff (the patient).

Health care professionals must strive and maintain effective communication with the entire staff as well as the patients in their care. Many factors can influence the communication between patients and their healthcare team. According to Paget et al., (2011), “there are seven basic principles of patient-clinician communication; mutual respect, harmonized goals, supportive environment, appropriate decision partners, the right information, transparency and full disclosure, and continuous learning” (p.2). In a clinician, patient relationship, mutual respect is important; both parties must make decisions together as a whole to improve the patients’ health. Sharing information helps build trust, although psychosocial needs also have to be considered.

In Gregg v Scott, Mr. Malcolm Gregg (‘the claimant’), the House of Lords examined the law of negligence in the area of personal injury. In order for the claimant to have a successful claim in court, the onus to shifts to the claimant to demonstrate that a duty of care owed by the doctor, there was a breach of that duty, an injury was sustained, and the negligence on behalf of the doctor Dr. Andrew Scott (‘defendant’) was a cause of the ‘injury’. If these elements are not satisfied, the claimant may lose its entitlement to full compensation.

Despite what may be a common societal belief, not all unexpected, unintended, or even undesired medical results can be attributed to the fault of a healthcare provider. The law identifies that much of nursing care requires clinical judgment. Therefore, a patient must prove four requisite elements to establish a malpractice case.