HCM337-0704B-01 Current Legal, Ethical, and Regulatory Issues in H - Phase 1 Discussion Board 3 - Essay Example

The health care field is a highly regulated industry in which companies participating in the market must ensure the firm’s are fully complying with all relevant regulations. Ocean Health currently is having problem complying with various regulation including matters related to poor medical record documentation and inappropriate disclosure of information. The purpose of this discussion is to provide Ocean Health with recommendations, procedures and solution on how to better deal with these issues in order to comply with all medical regulations.

Medical regulations are a reality in health care field which all companies must keep up with in order to stay in business. Sometimes regulatory forces moved extremely fast and changes come before a hospital or health care facility can adjust to the changes. In 2002 St. Jude Medical had new heart device they wanted to bring to the market, but regulatory forces mandated that the device be tested on X number of patients before brining it to market. The company was originally unaware of the regulations regarding human trials, which their entrance into the market costing them million of dollars in revenues (McCartney, 2007).

This is an example of the types of negative consequences of not complying with regulation which also includes other detrimental penalties such as fines, lawsuits and even complete shutdown of a medical facility. Ocean Health currently has two regulatory non-compliance issues which must be dealt with immediately. The first problem the health facility is facing is poor medical record documentation. The medical record is a key instrument that provides a medium to keep track of a patient’s current status and the treatment option administer to the patient.

It also provides other information about the patient such as demographic information which valuable for medical investigation of diseases. In order to improve the documentation of medical records Ocean Health has to understand the magnitude of errors, the different types of medical record errors and the reason these errors are occurring (Cheapceus). The healthcare facility should proceed by taking actions to remedy the problem and find ways to prevent medical record documentation errors from occurring.

Two aspects must be covered to deal with the problems: the human factor and the organizational operating factor. The human factor can be improved to minimized errors in the process by performing an assessment of all medical professionals that deal with medical record input and output to determine if they have they proper knowledge to deal medical documentation. Then the organization has to set up training for all professionals that demonstrate deficiency based on the assessment performed. The operation of the hospital can be improved in certain aspects related with medical record information.

For example the labels of medication can be changed to make the information more visible, the information of the medical records can be transformed from physical form to electronic record format in order to have a change to audit the information for legibility, since the medical data entry operator would have a chance to verify the information and call upon the person who data to ensure the correct information is entered into the electronic medical record. The problem of inappropriate disclosure of medical record is an issue that cannot occur.

The company has to established clear protocols on how to deal with this information and make amendments to its code of ethics and employee contracts to notify all employees that violations in medical record information disclosure will result in immediate termination of the employee’s contract and possible civil litigation against the person. ReferencesCheapceus. Medical Records: Goals and Objectives. Retrieved December 9, 2007 from http://www.cheapceus.com/Medicalerrorspt.html McCartney, J. (2007). Prism Research.

Pioneer Press. Retrieved December 9, 2007 from http://www.prismresearchinc.com/News/CD7B6C72-11F6-468F-8593-B96166802937.html