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Full-Text Articles in Law
Directors' Duty Of Care To Monitor Information Systems In Hmos: Some Lessons From The Oxford Health Plan, Mary E. O'Byrne
Directors' Duty Of Care To Monitor Information Systems In Hmos: Some Lessons From The Oxford Health Plan, Mary E. O'Byrne
Journal of Law and Health
Given this scale of investment, the centrality of information systems to the success of an HMO, the obligation of regulatory compliance, plus the attention now focused on the year 2000 "millenium bug" problem, information systems are clearly a major area of concern and oversight by corporate directors. This paper analyzes the role of information systems in HMOs and the nature of the HMO directors' duty of care in monitoring the integrity of the information systems to determine when directors may be held personally liable for losses suffered by the corporation when the systems collapse. Section I addresses in general the …
A Proposal To Recognize A Legal Obligation On Physicians To Provide Adequate Medication To Alleviate Pain, Tonya Eippert
A Proposal To Recognize A Legal Obligation On Physicians To Provide Adequate Medication To Alleviate Pain, Tonya Eippert
Journal of Law and Health
This note seeks to show how the current practice among medical practitioners in the United States, by treating pain retroactively after it begins, is inadequate. Administering narcotics to patients on an "as needed" basis unnecessarily prolongs pain and suffering. A more effective approach, which is advocated by the Agency for Health Care Policy & Research (AHCPR), is to treat pain preventatively rather than retroactively. The myth that pain medication is addictive, and that physicians should therefore prescribe as little pain medication as possible, is just that, a myth. Patients are suffering pain in today's hospitals and at home unnecessarily. Given …
Is Law The Prescription That Can Cure Medicine?, Samuel Gorovitz
Is Law The Prescription That Can Cure Medicine?, Samuel Gorovitz
Journal of Law and Health
Now medical care has been transformed. We recognize that the human organism is a complex interaction of many different systems-respiratory, circulatory, neurological, digestive, and so on. Some of them can fail and create both problems and opportunities we did not formerly have. One of the opportunities we now have is that we can keep people alive who in an earlier era would not have survived. And one of the problems we now have is also that we can keep people alive who in an earlier era would not have survived. Some of them are kept alive with such diminished capacity …
Government Created Medical Practice Guidelines: The Opening Of Pandora's Box, William R. Trail, Brad A. Allen
Government Created Medical Practice Guidelines: The Opening Of Pandora's Box, William R. Trail, Brad A. Allen
Journal of Law and Health
This article will discuss the background and creation of medical practice guidelines in part II. Next, we will define and discuss in Part III the two primary types of medical practice guidelines: privately created guidelines and government created guidelines. In Part IV, we will compare and contract the current medical practice guidelines programs in operation. Finally, we will recommend in section V that a medical practice guidelines program offering an affirmative defense to complying physicians should be implemented on the state level.
Doctors, Nurses And Superseding Cause: The Demise Of The Last In Time Defense, Charles Lattanzi
Doctors, Nurses And Superseding Cause: The Demise Of The Last In Time Defense, Charles Lattanzi
Journal of Law and Health
The question which naturally arises is whether the determination of superseding cause in this context is a question for the jury. Ohio case law has long held, as a matter of law, that the aggravation of an injury by the subsequent malpractice of a physician never breaks the chain of causation. Assuming that the original tortfeaser was negligent and that his actions caused the original injury, the only question left for the jury is whether the plaintiff herself exercised reasonable care in seeking treatment by a qualified physician. This rule was affirmed and given its common appellation, "the subsequent tortfeasor …
Clark V. Southview Hospital: Ohio Follows The Nationwide Trend Of Using Agency By Estoppel To Impose Strict Liability On Hospitals , Colleen Moran
Clark V. Southview Hospital: Ohio Follows The Nationwide Trend Of Using Agency By Estoppel To Impose Strict Liability On Hospitals , Colleen Moran
Journal of Law and Health
In Clark, the Ohio Supreme Court set forth a test a plaintiff must meet in order to hold a hospital vicariously liable under the doctrine of agency by estoppel. The court based its test on numerous such decisions from jurisdictions across the country. However, the legal soundness of Clark and the decisions on which it relied is questionable, as many of these jurisdictions misapplied the legal doctrines underlying agency by estoppel theory. This article analyzes the legal doctrines on which agency by estoppel is based, how this theory of vicarious liability has evolved in Ohio, and how state courts across …
A New Predicament For Physicians: The Concept Of Medical Futility, The Physician's Obligation To Render Inappropriate Treatment, And The Interplay Of The Medical Standard Of Care, Eric M. Levine
Journal of Law and Health
Part II of this article discusses the concept of futility and reviews various proposed approaches to defining "futility". This article then shows how personal value judgments play an integral part in determining futility under virtually all of these approaches. Part II concludes that a decision that treatment is futile should not be based on the individual values of only the patient or physician under the shared decisionmaking model of the physician-patient relationship. Part III tackles the issue whether a physician must offer or continue treatment deemed "medically and ethically inappropriate." Part III first reviews common law doctrines governing the physician-patient …