W 2 Legal Environment of Business' Discussion - Essay Example

School: LEGAL ENVIRONMENT OF BUSINESS Lecturer: LEGAL ENVIRONMENT OF BUSINESS Once patients visit the health facility, their expectation is for them to receive quality care at the most affordable cost. Stuart and Showalter (2011) however noted that the guarantee that health care would result in 100% fulfillment of patient expectation is almost an impossible. As much as this claim may be logical and valid, circumstances that undermine the achievement of quality health care is the most important issue in the legal environment of the health care sector.

In the health sector, the issues of malpractice and negligence are important issues that determine the actions that are taken towards failures associated with the outcome of specific health care practice. But to guard against liabilities, or at least major liabilities, health care professionals have often purchased malpractice insurance to protect themselves against patients who may press legal charges for being harmed by physician’s negligence. In this paper, the argument as to whether or not malpractice damages should be limited when gross negligence is proven is discussed.

The paper there serves as a recommendation paper on the way forward for the health care sector in securing legal protection against their actions.As noted in the article by Svorny (2011), there is the need for massive policy analysis on the malpractice insurance used by health practitioners. This is because over the years, there have been studies to suggest that some health care practitioners are indeed hiding under the cover of these insurances to provide less quality services to patients (Svorbey, 2011).

Meanwhile, the health of patients must always be made to come ahead of any interests that are served to protect the care giver. This is not to say however that health providers must be totally infallible. However, where issues of risks are posed to patients as a result of proven negligence, such practices cannot be accepted and defended. By this provision, a call for forensic workplace based investigations that can determine the circumstances under which health risks are posed to patients is recommended.

Svorny (2011) indeed lamented that because of the presence of malpractice insurance, very few cases of malpractice result in damages. The reason this is so is that “in most cases of negligence the damages are minimal” (Svony, 2011, p. 2). This means that limiting malpractice damage defeat the quest for patients to press home for their lives to be protected.As a way of balancing the argument for all interested parties, it will be recommended that there should be existing malpractice insurance and all other forms of legal provisions that protect health practitioners in cases of malpractice.

However, this should not be done in a manner that shifts the goalpost to the benefit of health practitioners alone. As much as the protection for practitioners will be in place, there should be further investigations to prove whether or not a case of malpractice was associated with gross negligence. Where there is prove of gross negligence, there should not be limitations on malpractice damages because of the presence of malpractice insurance for health providers. Once this is done, there will be fairness for all parties, whereby both patients and practitioners will have their courses well protected (Stewart, 2009).

ReferenceStewart, B. (2009). Human Resource Management, Linking Strategy to Practice. Texas: John Wiley and Sons. Stuart J. and Showalter, J.D. (2011). The Law of Healthcare Administration Health. New York: Administration PressSvorny S. (2011). Could Mandatory Caps on Medical Malpractice Damages Harm Consumers? Policy Analysis. 685; 1-8