08 Jun Question HMGT372 Legal and Ethical Issues in Health Care
Question
HMGT372 Legal and Ethical Issues in Health Care
Week 1 Discussion
Theme 1:
It is a challenging job to be a student. All students juggle multiple priorities and responsibilities trying to gain the highest grades at the same time. Please offer your strategies on time management and study skills to your peers. Provide minimum three of the most helpful tools and/or strategies that you use to a high degree of success. Tell us how you apply those tools or skills by sharing an example. Discuss the tips offered by your peers and reflect how or if they will work for you. Some of the additional information could be found in Helpful Tips overview.
Theme 2:
Discuss with your colleagues the following questions: What is “Legality”? What are “Ethics”? Compare and contrast legality and ethics in health care. Provide one (1) specific real life legal case example of a violation of legality in a healthcare organization and one (1) specific real life legal case example of a violation of ethics in a healthcare organization that you find on the internet or in the print media. See Discussion Expectations and Grading for rules on discussions. Read background articles. This discussion requires additional research beyond reading the articles.
Assigned reading materials:
Understanding Federal Courts – (Control>>Click>>From Drop down Menu select Open in New Window or Copy/Paste into your URL) http://www.uscourts.gov/about-federal-courts/court-role-and-structure
Introduction to the U.S. Legal System- http://litigation.findlaw.com/legal-system/introduction-to-the-u-s-legal-system.html
Legal issues facing health care professionals-http://www.beckershospitalreview.com/hospital-management-administration/13-legal-issues-for-hospitals-and-health-systems.html
Ethical and legal analysis of health care case-http://ijahsp.nova.edu/articles/Vol2num1/pdf/lazaro.pdf
This educational resource is designed to help health care organization directors ask knowledgeable and appropriate questions related to health care corporate compliance.http://www.hcca-info.org/Portals/0/PDFs/Resources/Conference_Handouts/Clinical_Practice_Compliance_Conference/2007/Fri/601Handout.pdf
Example of an Employee Handbook from Johns Hopkins: https://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/human_resources/_docs/employee_handbook_non-union_non-represented.pdf
Health Care Ethics – samples.jbpub.com/9781449665357/Chapter2.pdf (copy/paste into your URL)
A Framework for Thinking Ethically
This document is designed as an introduction to thinking ethically. We all have an image of our better selves-of how we are when we act ethically or are “at our best.” We probably also have an image of what an ethical community, an ethical business, an ethical government, or an ethical society should be. Ethics really has to do with all these levels-acting ethically as individuals, creating ethical organizations and governments, and making our society as a whole ethical in the way it treats everyone.
What is Ethics?
Simply stated, ethics refers to standards of behavior that tell us how human beings ought to act in the many situations in which they find themselves-as friends, parents, children, citizens, business people, teachers, professionals, and so on.
It is helpful to identify what ethics is NOT:
Ethics is not the same as feelings. Feelings provide important information for our ethical choices. Some people have highly developed habits that make them feel bad when they do something wrong, but many people feel good even though they are doing something wrong. And often our feelings will tell us it is uncomfortable to do the right thing if it is hard.
Ethics is not religion. Many people are not religious, but ethics applies to everyone. Most religions do advocate high ethical standards but sometimes do not address all the types of problems we face.
Ethics is not following the law. A good system of law does incorporate many ethical standards, but law can deviate from what is ethical. Law can become ethically corrupt, as some totalitarian regimes have made it. Law can be a function of power alone and designed to serve the interests of narrow groups. Law may have a difficult time designing or enforcing standards in some important areas, and may be slow to address new problems.
Ethics is not following culturally accepted norms. Some cultures are quite ethical, but others become corrupt -or blind to certain ethical concerns (as the United States was to slavery before the Civil War). “When in Rome, do as the Romans do” is not a satisfactory ethical standard.
Ethics is not science. Social and natural science can provide important data to help us make better ethical choices. But science alone does not tell us what we ought to do. Science may provide an explanation for what humans are like. But ethics provides reasons for how humans ought to act. And just because something is scientifically or technologically possible, it may not be ethical to do it.
Why Identifying Ethical Standards is Hard
There are two fundamental problems in identifying the ethical standards we are to follow:
1. On what do we base our ethical standards?
2. How do those standards get applied to specific situations we face?
If our ethics are not based on feelings, religion, law, accepted social practice, or science, what are they based on? Many philosophers and ethicists have helped us answer this critical question. They have suggested at least five different sources of ethical standards we should use.
Five Sources of Ethical Standards
The Utilitarian Approach
Some ethicists emphasize that the ethical action is the one that provides the most good or does the least harm, or, to put it another way, produces the greatest balance of good over harm. The ethical corporate action, then, is the one that produces the greatest good and does the least harm for all who are affected-customers, employees, shareholders, the community, and the environment. Ethical warfare balances the good achieved in ending terrorism with the harm done to all parties through death, injuries, and destruction. The utilitarian approach deals with consequences; it tries both to increase the good done and to reduce the harm done.
The Rights Approach
Other philosophers and ethicists suggest that the ethical action is the one that best protects and respects the moral rights of those affected. This approach starts from the belief that humans have a dignity based on their human nature per se or on their ability to choose freely what they do with their lives. On the basis of such dignity, they have a right to be treated as ends and not merely as means to other ends. The list of moral rights -including the rights to make one’s own choices about what kind of life to lead, to be told the truth, not to be injured, to a degree of privacy, and so on-is widely debated; some now argue that non-humans have rights, too. Also, it is often said that rights imply duties-in particular, the duty to respect others’ rights.
The Fairness or Justice Approach
Aristotle and other Greek philosophers have contributed the idea that all equals should be treated equally. Today we use this idea to say that ethical actions treat all human beings equally-or if unequally, then fairly based on some standard that is defensible. We pay people more based on their harder work or the greater amount that they contribute to an organization, and say that is fair. But there is a debate over CEO salaries that are hundreds of times larger than the pay of others; many ask whether the huge disparity is based on a defensible standard or whether it is the result of an imbalance of power and hence is unfair.
The Common Good Approach
The Greek philosophers have also contributed the notion that life in community is a good in itself and our actions should contribute to that life. This approach suggests that the interlocking relationships of society are the basis of ethical reasoning and that respect and compassion for all others-especially the vulnerable-are requirements of such reasoning. This approach also calls attention to the common conditions that are important to the welfare of everyone. This may be a system of laws, effective police and fire departments, health care, a public educational system, or even public recreational areas.
The Virtue Approach
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