Law and Healhcare Administration Law and Health Essay

Law and Healhcare Administration

Law and Health Care System Administration.

Law and healthcare system administration

From its earliest conception as a highly paternalistic relationship, "the physician-patient relationship has evolved towards shared decision making. This model respects the patient as an autonomous agent with a right to hold views, to make choices, and to take actions based on personal values and beliefs. Patients have been increasingly entitled to weigh the benefits and risks of alternative treatments, including the alternative of no treatment, and to select the alternative that best promotes their own values" (Physician-patient relationship, 2012, University of Washington School of Medicine). However, in the modern healthcare environment, the dominance of insurance companies has in many ways shifted decision-making to bureaucrats from both patients and physicians. Hospitals often also feel that they must make decisions based more in cost-benefit analysis than compassion they would otherwise like, in terms of allocating scarce resources. Despite these pressures of cost, our hospital must remain patient-focused. It must also preserve the integrity of the physician-patient relationship and not interfere with the sacredness of this bond.

However, our hospital also has an obligation to ensure that the physicians that practice here are competent, for legal as well as moral reasons.All hospital employees should be aware of the four elements of proof for a plaintiff to prove negligence. These include that: the defendant owed the plaintiff care, legally speaking; that this duty was breached; that the breach caused the injury; and that there is proof of damages done to the plaintiff (Fitzgerald & Fitzgerald, 2012, Elements of proof of negligence). "Normally, these elements are included in every medical malpractice claim involving a physician or healthcare worker, but including the hospital as a viable liable defendant in a claims case requires additional considerations" (Medical misdiagnosis, 2012, Medical malpractice). The doctor must usually either be operating as an employee of the hospital or there must be "the semblance of an employer-employee relationship" (Medical misdiagnosis, 2012, Medical malpractice). Occasionally, if the physician is known to be incompetent, the hospital may be proven liable for his actions for allowing him to practice on premises, or the hospital may be held liable exclusively if the physician used diagnostic or other equipment that caused the malpractice (Medical misdiagnosis, 2012, Medical malpractice).

However, a plaintiff does not necessarily need to prove negligence regarding his or her treatment at the hospital. Healthcare is a commodity, and according to….....