...An Ethical Analysis of Negligence In this paper, the author will describe the main differences among negligence, gross negligence, and malpractice in the medical field. In addition, the author will explain his opinion about this article and the facts described in it as well as the rationale used to form this opinion. Furthermore, the author will describe the importance of documentation in the medical field as well as how nurses should document when providing care while complying with legal and ethical requirements. Unintentional torts are the most common torts in the medical field. Torts are acts occurred without the tortfeasor intention to cause harm; however, some type of harm results from it. Torts are also actions committed unreasonably or disregarding the consequences, in legal terms this represents negligence (Judson & Harrison, 2010). According to Judson and Harrison (2010), negligence is an unintentional tort and a person is negligent when in similar circumstances he or she did not performed as expected from a reasonable person (Judson & Harrison, 2010). Defining gross negligence is a more complicated issue. According to Thornton (2006) the Texas Civil Practice and Remedies Code defines gross negligence as an act of omission that when viewed from the position of the actor at the time the omission occurred it shows a significant degree of risk and possible harm to others (Thornton, 2006). In addition, the actor is aware of the risks but proceeds disregarding the rights...
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...Malpractice Statutes Tort is an intentional or unintentional, non-criminal wrong that causes injury to another party. The injury can be physical, mental, or monetary. Once an injury occurs the wronged party can sue the wrongdoer for damages (Simon, Eddins, & Greenstone, 2009). Malpractice is one type of tort; tort reform is passed at a state level in regard to the laws regarding malpractice. The state can develop laws that cap the amount of reimbursement a judge can award for punitive damages a patient or family can acquire for damages in relation to malpractice. Tort reform, is an aspect that can attract physicians to specific states based on how friendly the practice environment is for health care providers. Tort reform aims to limit the liabilities of the wrongdoer. Those supporting tort reform claim that such changes will reduce frivolous lawsuits therefore reducing the cost of insurance (Simon et al., 2009). Tort reform can put tighter constraints on medical malpractice lawsuits taken to court, opposed to those that are dismissed. Essentially medical malpractice is, negligence or error committed by a health care professional where there is harm caused to the patient. Reductions of malpractice insurance would serve to reduce the cost of health care. Each state sets its own requirements regarding what is required for practitioners to have for insurance coverage to cover the practitioner for any lawsuits charge on them for malpractice. This paper will review two different...
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...Clark Yolanda Larrymore April 11, 2011 Group 5 Tort Reform As a society in today’s economy we are constantly being bombarded with news about law suits of one kind or another. It seems whenever we turn on the news there is a new high profile case of malpractice lawsuits and individuals are being sued left and right. We live in a lawsuit happy society that only continues to intensify as the economy continues to recover and citizens continue to seek employment. Often the main bulk of the law suits that make the news and that occur in today’s society are medical malpractice suits. One can find themselves hard pressed to watch T.V. without seeing a commercial or advertisement from an attorney offering to sue someone for something. In the realm of medical law suits the possibilities are seemingly endless. Patients are willing to sue anyone over anything including drug manufacturers, doctors, pharmacists, anesthesiologist and so forth. Malpractice insurance has reached an alarming high and physicians continue to fight for a cap to be placed on money awarded to plaintiffs. Physicians fear their jobs and lives may be in jeopardy if something is not done about these outrageous costs while patients worry that their medical care will suffer if such limits are awarded. In the 1990s there was a famous lawsuit that awarded a woman several million dollars in a law suit against McDonalds when she spilled hot coffee on her lap. Many of the details of the case were not given national...
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...The medical liability system needs reform to promote better patient safety and lower health care costs. In this paper I plan to show different types of reform that are needed in the medical liability system and how those changes will impact patient safety and cost. Also discussed will be the governments backing (or not) of medical liability reform. The current medical liability system was designed to provide monetary compensation to patients who suffer injury due to medical negligence. The system also works to reduce the chances of future patients being harmed by preventable medical errors. However, most individuals in the healthcare industry do not believe it accomplishes any of these goals. The biggest issues, as reported by critics of the system, are the cost and access of liability coverage, impact on patients’ safety, and the administrative costs of lawsuits. To address the shortcomings of the system, some reform has been introduced to modify the current tort system. Included in these reforms are Full disclosure/early offer programs, Certificates of merit programs, Caps on damage awards, periodic interim payment rules, joint and several liability reform, collateral source rule reform, screening panels and health courts. All of these programs are designed to lower the costs of Medical Liability insurance for the health care provider as well as addressing the safety of patients in various ways. They also give both the patient and the health care provider peace of mind because...
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...Issues for the Health Care Professionals I chose to use the medical specialty of medical surgeon for my paper; my reasoning behind this medical specialty is because surgeons account for nearly 50% of all medical malpractice law suits in the country. The bulk of these law suits occur in just 75 of the largest counties , which indicates that most medical malpractice law suits occur in the more densely populated areas which is where the most income is generated. Another 33% of nonsurgical law suits occur in the same 75 counties which when added together account for 83% of all law suits filed in the United States. To put these numbers in the proper context there are thousands of counties in the United States, so what you have is the people in areas like New York, Las Angeles, Atlanta and so on filing thousands of law suits each year. It is estimated that from 1990-2004 there were over 191,804 medical malpractice lawsuits reported to the National Practitioner Databank (NPD) regarding physicians in the United States. It is further estimated that of all the medical law suits filed only about 27% of them were won by the plaintiffs, which can lead a person to believe that there are a lot of frivolous suits being filed. It is estimated that 25% of all doctors in the United States are sued each year, which means that if you are a surgeon you have a better than 1 in 4 chance of getting sued each year that you practice medicine. It must be for love of the profession because with those...
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...Medical Malpractice Tort Reform in the Healthcare Industry Medical malpractice reform, also known as tort reform, includes strategies to limit medical malpractice costs, deter medical errors and ensure that patients who are injured by medical negligence are fairly compensated. Tort reform has the potential to reduce health care expenditures by reducing the number of malpractice claims, the average size of malpractice awards and tort liability system administrative costs (Medical Malpractice Reform, 2011). Since the 1970s, medical malpractice has been a controversial social issue, which has caused physicians to have increasing concerns about the large number of lawsuits and the negative connotations that tend to go along with them. Physicians have started pushing for legal reforms to decrease the large monetary awards for damages whereas tort attorneys have argued that the negligence suits are an effective way of compensating the victims fairly and forcing the medical professions to follow a proper standard of care (Pozgar, 2013). An article from the Journal of Patient Safety estimates that between 210,000 to 400,000 people die every year in the U.S. from hospital medical errors and 1 in 14 U.S. doctors face a malpractice lawsuit every year (Corapi, 2014). Physicians and healthcare providers argue that the millions of dollars that are awarded in damages increase the cost of healthcare by passing this cost onto the consumer in the form of higher insurance premiums and...
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...Registered Dietitians and Liability Issues Liability Issues Affecting Registered Dietitians: Measures to Avoid and Prevent Negligence For this application paper, the allied health care professional I chose as the subject is a Registered Dietitian. According to the Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics, “a Registered Dietitian (RD) is a food and nutrition expert who has met the minimum academic and professional requirements to qualify for the credential RD” (Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics, 2015). The main responsibilities for an RD is to learn about the patient’s health, history, diet, and how often they exercise. Once they know all of this information, they are able to help individuals create and establish goals. The patient then has to make sure they visit their RD to monitor their progress. Patients could visit his or her RD at a hospital, private practice, health care organization or facility. Most of the Registered Dietitian’s have a graduate degree and are certified in fields such as renal, pediatrics, food allergy, or sports (Ansel, 2014). Since they have gone through highly specialized training, they are expected to undertake new challenges by diving into practice areas they are unfamiliar with. One of these challenges is to try and avoid being held liable for professional negligence. A myriad of cases that involve RD is when he or she fails to act in a reasonable manner. In order to prove that negligence it is essential to know the main reason behind...
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...Legal Issues. This chapter explores how to understand how ethics and law impact physicians everyday professional lives. There are many misdiagnosed patients more and more every year. In this paper I will go over the background of Misdiagnosis and how it affects the patient, the legal mindset of the ever growing issue, and pick apart an actual case that was misdiagnosed and the outcome that came from it. Misdiagnosis is a medical error that is a preventable adverse effect of care. This usually includes an...
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...Negligence, Gross Negligence, or Malpractice Lesli Sherwin, RN HCS/478 Health Law and Ethics May 11th, 2015 Lynda White ADN, BS Negligence, Gross Negligence, or Malpractice Malpractice includes both negligence and gross negligence. Malpractice is a tort in which a person who claims a practice in some profession fails in their duty, lacks in their skill to the extent that it causes damage to their client or patient. Negligence and gross negligence are both forms of malpractice. Simple ordinary negligence is the lack of performing in a manner consistent with standards of practice including omissions in practice, and failure to provide care that any other reasonable prudent nurse would provide. The Elements that a plaintiff must prove to win their negligence claim include breach of duty, causation, and damages (Weiler, 1995). If they cannot prove there was a breach in all three of these things, then the plaintiff will lose the case. Gross Negligence, is negligence on a grand scale. It borders reckless behaviors and culpability. It is most simply explained in terms of degree of negligence, or the severity of the negligence is worse than simple or ordinary negligence. Gross negligence can be very subjective and is used in extreme cases that might have ended with manslaughter charges or something of the like. Could the event or act have been controlled by the practitioner? If the answer is yes, then it is probably neglect. If the act was purposeful and the practitioner understood...
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...Grading Criteria Significant Health Care Event Paper This assignment is due in Week One. |Content |Points |Points |Additional | |60 Percent |Available |Earned |Comments: | | |6 |X/6 | | |Paper discusses a significant event or aspect that has changed or affected health care today | | | | |and includes the following: | | | | |How does this significant event relate to the changes on health care? | | | | |In your opinion, has this event impacted the historical evolution of health care? If so, how?| | | | |If not, could it? | | | | |Do you personally agree with the event’s significance, based on your beliefs and values? How | | | | |so? | | | ...
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...CONTROLLING HEALTH CARE COSTS WHILE PROMOTING THE BEST POSSIBLE HEALTH OUTCOMES American College of Physicians A White Paper 2009 Controlling Health Care Costs While Promoting the Best Possible Health Outcomes Summary of Position Paper Approved by the ACP Board of Regents, September 2009 What are the Major Drivers of Health Care Costs? Major drivers of health care costs include: inappropriate utilization especially of advanced medical technology, lack of patient involvement in decision-making, payment system distortions that encourage over-use, high prices for health care services, a health care workforce that is not aligned with national needs, excessive administrative costs, medical liability and defensive medicine, more Americans with declining health status and chronic disease, and demographic changes including an increase in elderly persons. This paper addresses each of these drivers of health care costs and provides recommendations for controlling them. Why Do We Need to Control Health Care Costs? Improvements in health care have the ability to provide opportunities for all people to live better, healthier lives. However, the rate of increase in U.S. spending on health care continues to exceed economic growth at an unsustainable pace. The rate of growth in health care spending is the single most important factor undermining the nation’s long-term fiscal condition. Why Should Controlling Health Care Costs be Linked to Promoting Good Health Outcomes? Increasing pressure...
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...For the most part, EHRs improve communication by doing away with handwriting errors, reduce time pulling charts, and enable multiple staff to simultaneously work on the same patient chart. [7] The EHR also has a remarkable potential to improve quality of care through CPOE and further, aids in the measuring quality and performance data.[6] Studies, however, have shown mixed results regarding medical errors and adverse events with the use of CPOE.[6] 3.2.1 RESEARCH Prior to EHRs, information about quality and performance was obtained by examining insurance claims. There are several limitations to obtaining information through insurance claims such as incomplete sampling methods and the complexity of assigning attribution of specific care to physicians.[21]...
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...Week One Paper: 8/19-8/25 NUR 3826: Ethical & Legal Issues in Health Care Week One Paper: 8/19-8/25 Nursing is a profession that is diverse and those practicing have the potential to adopt their own standards and competencies. However, thanks to the American Nurses Association, standards and competencies have been adopted, stating that all registered nurses regardless of role, population, or specialty are expected to perform competently (ANA, 2010, p. 2). The 2004 Scope and Standards were revised in 2010 secondary to the change in dynamics of the nursing profession. The current 2010 Scope and Standards (1-16) are thoroughly stated, leaving those reading minimal occasion for misinterpretation, in comparison to the 2004 Scope and Standards (1-15). For example, the 2010 Standard 1. Assessment, specifically states the competencies in collecting data, recognizing the impact of personal attitudes values and beliefs, and the fact that the health care consumer’s care preferences is to be honored because they have the authority over their health. The 2004 Scope and Standard 1. Assessment, gives very general authoritative statements. It never highlights the attitudes, values and beliefs of the nurse and the impact it has on the health care consumer or the fact that the health care consumer has the authority over their health and the nurse has to honor their preferences (ANA, 2010, pp. 32-33, 119). The 2010 Standard 7. Ethics competencies states that that the registered nurse...
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...Abstract: Impact of technology is both positive and negative. Logically thinking, technology has since been better in the communication process and done negligible harm. Development of technology has considerably improved our lifestyle. It has made its impact felt on each and every aspect of life, including communication technology. Invention of Alexander Graham Bell in 1875, the first inventor that impacted communication in humans to a massive extent. Impact of technolgy on the communication process, also comes as a mixed baggage. Daily routine of a person, the day begins with a “good morning” text and ends in a “good night” text. All done on a mobile application for smartphones. On the same application social networking sites are a world themselves, a Virtual World, to make the process quick and easy there are modes, like online chats, emails, teleconferencing, video conferencing, networking sites, etc. The greatest need for all human needs is, the need for communication. It is a daily use for us as humans to survive in this life. There is no way we can not go without communicating. In my eyes; “it is another way of sending messages”. In recent years, technology of communication has rapidly developed since the century of when, “pigoens delivered notes”, “horses sent mail deliveries to others”, a lot of things. It became advancement in telecommunications. It became a big impact to society to our generations and...
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...uses events from the lives of the Lacks family and examples of medical treatment from the time, to construct and defend the argument that minorities and members of lower socioeconomic statuses receive worse medical treatment than upper and middle class non-minorities and are subjected to exploitation. Topic Sentence 01: Many medical professionals at the time, had negative attitudes towards non white, uneducated or impoverished peoples. Evidence: “But Carrel wasn’t interested in immortality for the masses. He was a eugenicist: organ transplantation and life extension were ways to preserve what he saw as the superior white race…”(Skloot 59). Commentary: Carrel, a nobel prize...
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