CRIMINAL AND CIVIL LAW IN HEALTH CARE - Essay Example

CRIMINAL AND CIVIL LAW IN HEALTH CARE OF The structure of corporations consists of the Board of Directors (BOD), the employees and the stakeholders. The BOD is elected by the stakeholders and their core purpose is to guard the stakeholder’s investments. The Board of Directors also report the operations progress to the stakeholders and they are not involved directly with internal company operations, although they can take part in drafting of the internal by laws. It should also be noted that the BOD are protected from company liabilities.

The employees are the backbone of any corporation. They carry out any work assigned to them. The stakeholders own the corporation. They do not participate in the daily company operations, although they influence corporate major decisions. They also vote for and remove the BOD members from office. Finally, the stakeholders also take part in constituting and amending company by laws, Articles of Incorporation. They also handle mergers and any sales and dissolutions. Corporate authority is categorized into express and implied.

According to Pozgar, “Express corporate authority is the power specifically delegated by statute. A health care corporation derives authority to act with from the laws of the state in which it is incorporated. The articles of incorporation set forth the purpose(s) of the corporation’s existence and the powers the corporation is authorized to exercise in order to carry out its purposes. Implied corporate authority is the right to perform any and all acts necessary to exercise a corporation’s expressly conferred authority and to accomplish the purpose(s) for which it is created.

” How do corporations come into play in the delivery of healthcare services? Health care organisations are incorporated as non profit corporations, thus they are exempted from the taxation bracket and are open to receive donor’s contributions. In the delivery of health care services, corporations ensure that they follow the stated mandate and incorporation by laws. Else, the governing body would be held accountable for not performing procedures in its written scope, which is an ultra vires act.

An example of this would be employing someone who is not conversant with the health care practice. How do corporate ethics impact healthcare? They build and restore trust in the system. People are trusting health care facilities in how they operate, treat patients, how they inform their patients on their rights and responsibilities and the procedures to follow in the event of improper conduct. Corporate ethics has also minimized corporate negligence as patients have the legal right to sue the care corporation in the event that some duties to them are not performed.

Corporate ethics has also attributed to corporate responsibility, where the health care organisation has a duty and responsibility to its patients to protect them from untrained and unprofessional physicians and to ensure top level competency. Finally, health care also faces ethical challenges. According to the Ethics Resource Centre, “All healthcare organizations face the full range of organizational ethics challenges, which confront businesses around the world. These include bottom-line pressures, competitive pressures, and non-healthcare organizational and social goals.

The very culture of the organization has a great impact on the type and quality of decisions that are made by its staff and management.” According to The New England Journal of Medicine, another ethical impact is the delivery of quality health vs. patient communication “Physicians view quality in health care as the application of evidence-based medical knowledge to the particular needs and wishes of individual patients. Patients may place more importance on how clinicians communicate with them, or how long they are kept waiting for appointments, than on the technical accuracy of the advice offered, though a new wave of health-conscious consumers is developing technical sophistication.

”REFERENCESPozgar, G. (2012). Legal aspects of health care administration, 11, pp. 144-243. Cheryl, R. (2002). The Intersection of Health Care and Organizational Ethics. Available at: http://www.ethics.org/resource/intersection-health-care-and-organizational-ethicsBodenheimer, T. (1999). The Movement for Improved Quality in Health Care. The New England Journal of Medicine, 340, pp. 340-488. Available at: http://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJM199902113400621