HRM FPX 5401 Assessment 2

Civil and Criminal Law in Healthcare: Memorandum

Healthcare industry Human Resource (HR) professionals in the healthcare sector perform a variety of duties, ranging from managing personnel to ensuring legal compliance. The healthcare sector is confronted with legal battles on a daily basis, and the role of the HR department is to manage these intricacies. HR practitioners ought to have a sharp understanding of civil and criminal law, which would enable them to deal with risks that would affect the well-being of patients, employees, and the organization. If a healthcare organization is faced with a criminal act that violates patient safety, the sanctions could irreparably damage the organization’s reputation and call for draconian legal sanctions. Civil laws, which deal with contracts, malpractice, and work disputes, also address health issues.

This memo will address the case of Vila Health and a pediatric patient who was given the wrong drug. It will explain the civil and criminal issues that the organization can face as a result of this incident. The memo shall also scrutinize the law in the case and present relevant organizational policies, legislation, and regulations before an informed discourse with the advisory services. Discourse is proposed to clear the problem of the family at the expense of not jeopardizing lawful interests in the organization.

Staff Protocol Interviews

The initial action for the facility would be to have the ethics committee review the policies of the hospital and its position regarding reporting medical errors to see if their process is ethical (Medical Ethics Advisor, 2011). Next, they have read, and HR and management will conduct an interview with the physician, nurse, and pharmacist who witnessed the event. All the health workers will be interviewed about the standard procedure and protocol of administering medication to patients. The interviewing will be on a one-on-one basis so that each staff member can explain their actions and role in the incident, i.e., the way the medicine was prescribed, received, examined, prepared, and administered.

This interviewing will identify who was present and who was omitted, and how the error occurred. It should be critical that the questions used test the staff’s knowledge, training, and understanding of dose calculations and medication safety. The communication and documentation processes should also be tested to ensure whether or not the order was well-written, documented, and communicated to the staff. Every person’s specific function and activity, including checking the drug orders, writing them down, and giving them to the patient, also needs to be tested. Finally, why the error occurred, whether because of distraction, too much work, lack of staff, or any other reason that could have led to the accident, needs to be evaluated.

Civil Issues Questions for Counsel

To address the civil aspects of the accident, the following questions must be asked of legal advisers:

• Can there be any basis of medical malpractice here? 2. Is there a description of negligence? If so, what is the required evidence? 3. Are there likely liabilities to the respective medical professionals concerned here, namely the doctor, nurse, and pharmacist? 4. Are there likely emotional distress or psychiatric injury claims on the patient and family arising on account of the incident?

5. What legal remedy would be available if the cause is determined to be a system failure at the health care center, such as inadequate training or improper procedures? 6. Is there a case for vicarious liability of the organization against the employee in such a situation for actions by their staff? 7.

What is the nature of damages recoverable for the patient and their family in a lawsuit?

Response to the Civil Law Issue

Answer to the Civil Law Problem In the current scenario, Vila Health’s hospital is confronted with a case of civil law that is characterized by negligence.

Negligence can be defined as a tort, which is an individual or a civil wrong that results from inattention or carelessness that varies from the standard of care reasonably required of prudent members of society (Pozgar, 2020).

The responsible parties for this negligence can be any trained health practitioners who failed to offer appropriate care and failed to maintain the established standards.

Medical malpractice refers to the failure of a health practitioner to deliver treatment to the standard that other practitioners offer to patients who are not significantly different from him (Berger & Green Attorneys at Law, 2023). The use of an inappropriate medication, which provided the patient with five hours’ worth of a negative effect, potentially even amounting to a case of medical malpractice. To sustain a claim for medical negligence, the family has to prove that the medical practitioner had a duty of care, that such a duty was violated by negligence, that the patient was harmed as a direct result, and that the patient sustained damages due to the violation of duty of care (Bieber, 2022).

Criminal Issues Questions for Counsel

To understand the potential criminal aspects of this case, legal advisers should ask the following questions:

• What criminal legislation could be involved in this case, depending upon the potential damage inflicted on the patient?

2. Is there any aspect of recklessness or willful disregard that would render potential criminal liability?
3. What are the possible criminal liabilities of the health professionals concerned, e.g., the doctor, nurse, and pharmacist?
4. Has any specific criminal law or regulation concerning patient safety or drug administration been breached?
5. What is criminal proof beyond a reasonable doubt, and how is it different from the civil burden of proof?
6. What are some available defenses to criminal liability in that case?
7. Are there additional potential criminal impacts on the health care organization itself, apart from those resulting from the actions of individual health care providers?

Response to the Criminal Law Issue

Criminal negligence is careless disregard for other people’s safety, manifested by willful ignorance of harm possibilities from an act (Pozgar, 2020). Under Chapter 4, Criminal Aspects of Health Care, criminal negligence occurs where there is a considerable departure from the standard of care that a reasonably prudent person would adopt in similar circumstances, even without particular or general criminal intent, as in State v. Brenner. In this instance, the health worker who had administered the drug to the child can be found guilty of criminal negligence if the court determines that the drug was administered negligently and heedlessly. For the patient to be held guilty of criminal negligence, he or she would have to have incurred serious injury or death. To establish that the healthcare practitioner should be found guilty of a crime, the prosecutor would need to establish beyond a reasonable doubt that the healthcare worker’s conduct constituted a gross departure from the standard of care, with no more than reckless disregard for the patient’s welfare. Depending on the seriousness of the patient’s injury, potential criminal negligence charges range from a misdemeanor with probation and fines to a felony with jail time and substantial fines (Kehoe, 2023).

Conclusion

Short of that, as much as doctors would wish to heal and help their patients, errors are inevitable. Where such errors lead to injury, the injured patient is allowed by law to sue for damages. Where, in this instance, the incorrect dosing appears to have been an arbitrary error, it is more likely to qualify for civil action rather than criminal prosecution. The patient’s family can bring an action of negligence against the center, the doctors, and/or other medical staff involved. The plaintiff has the onus of proof in an action in a negligence claim, which they must prove by showing that the defendant had a duty of care, which was breached and resulted in harm to the plaintiff (Wex Definitions Team, 2023). undefined Reference undefined. Berger and Green Attorneys at Law published a document in 2023.

HRM FPX 5401 Assessment 2 Civil and Criminal Law in Healthcare: Memorandum 

Medical Ethics Advisor. (2011, May). Responding to medical errors ethically. Retrieved from https://www.proquest.com/docview/866558636?accountid=27965&parentSessionId=9oc67izLcL3KQ%2FdE1cWW08riEz52BacUFNOdI6PSlHE%3D

Pozgar, G. D. (2020). The book, Legal and Ethical Essentials of Healthcare Administration, is in its 3rd edition. Burlington, MA: Jones & Bartlett Learning. Wex Definitions Team. (2023, July). Negligence. Retrieved from Legal Information Institute: https://www.law.cornell.edu/wex/negligence