Legal and Ethical issues in Healthcare Management 3

Legal and Ethical Issues in Healthcare Management
Healthcare field tends to have many regulations and laws that practitioners need to consider while on duty. Some laws even appear to be complex, for instance, the federal law accepts euthanasia as one of the methods used to help people who are suffering from an irreversible coma. But ethically it is wrong to end the life of an individual since God is the one who created us and nature should take control. Confidentiality can be considered to be an ethical and legal issue. Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) is a law which protects patients and how their information can be released (Chen & Benusa, 2017). The law does not allow clinicians to release information about patients without their consent (Frerich et al., 2012). Ethically, it is good to keep patients records and other hospital information as one way to show respect. Releasing patients’ information without their authority could make them feel embarrassed in the society.
Malpractice is another ethical issue; practitioners or clinicians need to administer the correct medication to clients (Zhan, Niying, Mengsi, Dear & Chee-Ruey, 2017). Patients are human beings, and they need to be well taken care of; hence, any surgery to be conducted should not cause harm. Also, there are laws which protect patients from clinicians who perform medical procedures and deliberately causing harm. Thus, such laws are there to ensure patients receive the best services in hospitals.

Clinicians are supposed to honor code of ethics while attending to clients. Sexual relationship with patients’ is prohibited and is considered as misconduct for any practitioner who practices it within the healthcare environments. Clinicians who are found to have gone against the code of ethics can be expelled or even lose their license (Tarzian & Wocial, 2015). Hence, practitioners are supposed to show a good working relationship with their clients.
References
Chen, J. Q., & Benusa, A. (2017). HIPAA security compliance challenges: The case for small healthcare providers. International Journal of Healthcare Management, 10(2), 135-146. doi:10.1080/20479700.2016.1270875
Frerich, E. A., Garcia, C. M., Long, S. K., Lechner, K. E., Lust, K., & Eisenberg, M. E. (2012). Health Care Reform and Young Adults’ Access to Sexual Health Care: An Exploration of Potential Confidentiality Implications of the Affordable Care Act. American Journal of Public Health, 102(10), 1818-1821.
Tarzian, A. J., & Wocial, L. D. (2015). A Code of Ethics for Health Care Ethics Consultants: Journey to the Present and Implications for the Field. American Journal of Bioethics, 15(5), 38-51. doi:10.1080/15265161.2015.1021966
Zhan, W., Niying, L., Mengsi, J., Dear, K., & Chee-Ruey, H. (2017). Records of medical malpractice litigation: a potential indicator of health-care quality in China. Bulletin of the World Health Organization, 95(6), 430-436. doi:10.2471/BLT.16.179143