Professional Liability, Ways to Proactively Avoid or Prevent That Negligence - Essay Example

? Professional Liability Number: Introduction Simply put, professional liability refers to legal obligations that emanate from errors, negligent acts, acts of omission by a professional, during the professional’s course of practice of his craft. All fields of profession have professional liability that bind employees to specific codes of ethics, conducts and practices, in respect to employees’ lines of duty. The scope and nature of professional liability is more sacrosanct, pronounced and grave in the field of medical or healthcare services provision. The wideness and seriousness of professional liability in healthcare sector is exemplified by the fact that suchlike liability binds not only nurses and physicians, but also administrators and members of the auxiliary staff who work in healthcare services providing institutions. Particularly, an administrator is also bound by professional liability towards the patient, given that his input directly and indirectly affects the way medical intervention will be administered, and the kind of medical intervention which will be administered. Likewise, the same liability is underpinned by the fact that administrators in healthcare services providing institutions directly and indirectly comes into contact with the patient. The same also serves as the custodian of the patient’s profile, while in hospital or any other form of medical institution. The failure to file a patient’s details or profile is one of the situations in which a healthcare institution’s administrator can be held professionally liable, particularly if this failure becomes injurious to the patient, by affecting the patient’s life, health or by aiding the patient’s death. Such kind of situation will be regarded as negligence, or negligent behavior, on the side of the administrator. The failure to file the patient’s records, profile or details, either in part can be considered as negligent behavior on the side of the hospital administrator, on several counts. First, the culpability of the administrator for being negligent towards the patient is underpinned by the administrator’s scope of duty. The compiling, updating and systematically filing of the patient’s records which divulge details on the patient’s health status, response to a particular medicine and the extent to which the patient has fulfilled his financial obligations, are duties that fall within the administrator’s jurisdiction (Kavaler and Spiegel, 2003). Secondly, the liability for professional negligence on the side of the administrator is underscored by the fact that such a mistake, even if unintentional, may have far reaching consequences on the patient. For instance, the failure to update the extent the patient has met his financial obligations can be said to be negligent action, if it leads to the partial or complete withholding of medical services to the patient. This may affect the patient’s rate of recovery, complicate the patient’s health further or even catalyze the patient’s death. As a matter of fact, this failure on the part of the administrator becomes the cause of an illegitimate reason for the withdrawal of medical services and facilities from the patient. Against this backdrop, the administrator may be charged with professional negligence, since his inaction or omission becomes injurious to the patient’s health. In a more serious wavelength, Morrison (2010) divulges that it is important to note that the compilation, updating and systematically filing of the patient’s profile and medical records, on the side of the administrator, is a matter that has far-reaching consequences. It is possible for the failure to compile, update and file the patient’s medical records to aid the administration of treatment and drugs that the patient is allergic to, and thereby leading to the patient’s health deterioration, if not death, for such cases have abounded. This happens when a physician’s actions within the line of duties follow and is predicated on the administrator’s negligent act or act of omission, and thereby injuring the patient. For instance, this may happen when the patient discloses to the physician that he is allergic to penicillin and the doctor notes it down but the administrator fails to keep such records well. The injurious part of this act may come into play when for instance there is an emergency on the same patient, and a physician acts on the existing (but resultantly incomplete records) and consequently administers penicillin-laced drugs into the patient’s system, and thereby exposing the patient to serum sickness or even life-threatening conditions such as anaphylaxis. In this situation, the administrator becomes liable for negligence since his negligent action or inaction served as the cause of the patient’s loss. According to Ashcroft, Dawson and Draper (2007), the aspect of Jurisdiction may also underscore and elucidate further, the administrator’s culpability. Even if the argument that it is the physicians who write patient’s reports and results for current and future references may be cogently advanced, yet it remains true that after the patient’s file remains under the administrator’s custody in the period immediately after treatment and the patient’s next visit. It is the administration’s role to piece together and update, the medical report from the doctor, and to compute the same into a complete database. In a separate vein, Jo and Czecowski (2006) observe that the culpability of the administrator is well emphasized by legal and ethical importance of medical records. It is required that during, after and prior to the administration of treatment, there must be a documentation of an individual patient’s medical history and health care, across time. Such documentation must include medical observations, administration of drugs and therapies, the order in which such therapy and/or drugs should be administered, x-rays, test results, reports, the kind of medical cover the patient has subscribed to, and the extent to which the patient has fulfilled his financial obligation. As a matter of fact, the maintenance of accurate and complete medical records is a requirement of medical services providers, as is enforced as certification or licensing prerequisite. In respect to the information immediately above, while the physician’s chief role is to administer medical treatment, the administrator is to facilitate the maintenance and exchange of information for action, with medical records being a salient factor in healthcare services provision. This is because the patient is at the centermost position in medical services provision and institutions, and their records have to be dexterously maintained and referred to during treatment. Other factors that may be detailed in the medical records include medications and medical history, family and social history, the patient’s lifestyle habits, growth and development chart, and immunization history. Furthermore, for one to hold the position of an administrator in a healthcare institution, such a one must have known that health records are legal documents that are subject to the laws of the state in which the medical institution operates. Because of this, there is no uniformity in the way in which proof can be used to verify facts, the absence of these facts even in the absence of these medical records. Again, the administrator may be held for negligence if he fails to keep such records as confidential. By this, it is meant that the administrator fails to keep the medical records in a manner that does not lock out other parties outside the rightful users from accessing such information. In this situation, if the accession of such information becomes injurious to the patient, then he administrator is held as being responsible for professional negligence. Some of the injurious developments that may stem from such acts of negligence are not limited to, but may include: the leaking of such documents to the public; and using such medical records to blackmail, impersonate or/ and humiliate the patient. Ways to Proactively Avoid or Prevent That Negligence There are several measures that can be put in place to prevent this form of negligence. First, it is important that medical institutions or caregivers take measures to enlighten the relevant staff on the legality of medical records. While enlightening the relevant staff on the legal implications that may accost negligence in handling medical records, it is also expedient that the relevant staff is also informed of the extent to which negligent mishandling of medical records can seriously harm the patient, to the point of even causing death. Such exercises and attempts at conscientizing the staff on negligence with medical records readily warrant workshop programs and training sessions. Conversely, the same problem of negligence with medical records can be solved through the use of Electronic Medical Record (EMR). That the EMR is a computerized medical record to work in a healthcare organization, is an added advantage in the war against this danger since it is a stand-alone medical/health information system which allows for easier and instantaneous storage, modification and retrieval of medical records. This significantly reduces chances for the failure to keep such documents as confidential or cases of documents being displaced. The Electronic Health Record (HER) can also go a long way in forestalling the danger of negligence in handling such documents since it is a record in digital format. Because of this property, it is theoretically capable of being shared among different departments in the healthcare organization. The import of this is that the updates that the doctor makes in the patient’s file are entered pronto, electronically in other departments, so that it is unnecessary to move with documents from one department to another. Losses of documents that accompany physical transfer of health records are thus significantly extirpated. The passwords that govern the access to HER also go a long way in enhancing patient confidentiality since only authorized users can login to a patient’s database (Tomes, 2004). Finally, the barrage that may stem from this form of negligence can be assuaged by initiating the use of personal health records (also known as the PHR). This involves the introduction of a system whereby medical records, although compiled by healthcare providers, yet they can be maintained by accessed and maintained by the patients themselves, through the use of online data storage systems which are often provided in third party websites. This concept has been proven by American national health administration agencies such as the American Health Information Management Association (AHIMA) as extremely tenable and helpful. In this case, the risk of a patient’s medical records will have been significantly mitigated since the patient is in control of the password and username to his own account. References Ashcroft, R. E. Dawson, A. & Draper, H. (2007). Principles of Healthcare. New York: Wiley Press. Jo, A. & Czecowski, B. (2006). Privacy and Confidentiality of Healthcare. New York: SAGE. Kavaler, F. & Spiegel, A. (2003). Risk Management in Healthcare Institutions: A Strategic Approach. New York: Prentice Hall. Morrison, E. (2010). Ethics in Health Administration: A Practical Approach for Decision- making. NY/London: Johns & Bartlett Publishing. Tomes, P. J. (2004). Healthcare, Privacy & Confidentiality: The Complete Legal Guide. Probus Publishing. Read More