Instructions

For this assignment, you will be creating three scenarios of your own that are similar to the ones discussed in the unit lesson. These scenarios can be made up, real stories, or a combination of the two. Each scenario should consist of at least 200 words and should properly reflect the material discussed within this unit.

• Your first scenario should apply the elements of negligence and professional negligence (malpractice) to a patient claim against a healthcare provider. In other words, your scenario should describe a situation in which a healthcare provider was negligent or committed malpractice against a patient. Be sure to properly detail the event and how it was resolved.
• Your second scenario should describe an intentional tort that was committed within the healthcare environment. Also, the scenario should explain a legal remedy that the victim of the intentional tort could pursue.
• Your third scenario should describe an instance in which a patient’s rights may have been violated by a healthcare provider. Also, the scenario should explain the responsibility that healthcare providers have to protect their patients from harm.

Please include all three scenarios within one document and submit it through SafeAssign within the assignment area in Blackboard. APA references are not necessary for this assignment.

MHA 5101, Legal Foundations of Health Care 1

Course Learning Outcomes for Unit III

Upon completion of this unit, students should be able to:

3. Assess the role of laws designed specifically for the healthcare environment.
3.1 Describe a scenario in which an intentional tort was committed within the healthcare

environment.
3.2 Explain the legal remedies a victim of an intentional tort can pursue.

5. Examine the rights and responsibilities of the patient, physician, and medical practice.

5.1 Describe a scenario in which a patient’s rights may have been violated by a healthcare
provider.

5.2 Explain the responsibility of healthcare providers to protect their patients from harm.

6. Analyze the characteristics of negligence in the healthcare environment.
6.1 Apply the elements of negligence and professional negligence to patient claims against

providers.

Course/Unit
Learning Outcomes

Learning Activity

3.1
Unit Lesson
Chapter 5 Reading
Unit III Assignment

3.2
Unit Lesson
Chapter 5 Reading
Unit III Assignment

5.1
Chapter 4 Reading
Unit Lesson
Unit III Assignment

5.2
Chapter 4 Reading
Unit Lesson
Unit III Assignment

6.1
Chapter 6 Reading
Unit Lesson
Unit III Assignment

Reading Assignment

Chapter 4: Tort Law-Negligence

Chapter 5: Intentional Torts

Chapter 6: Criminal Aspects of Health Care

UNIT III STUDY GUIDE

Criminal and Civil Law
in Healthcare

MHA 5101, Legal Foundations of Health Care 2

UNIT x STUDY GUIDE

Title

Unit Lesson

Negligence

Negligence claims are filed by a person or persons who are wronged by another person. Anyone can be sued
for negligence. The plaintiff must prove that the defendant had a duty to the plaintiff, that the defendant
breached that duty, and that the breach of duty caused an injury to the plaintiff. Negligence is part of a
category of legal claims called torts. Torts are simply legal wrongs against a person or persons.

There are different types of negligence, including professional negligence. Professional negligence is also
called malpractice. A malpractice claim can be brought against any professional with superior knowledge as
demonstrated by higher skill or education. In general, a state-issued certification or license is enough to
establish a superior knowledge or training. This label of malpractice is not limited to just doctors.
Professionals such as lawyers, hairdressers, plumbers, mechanics, and many more categories of service
professionals may be sued for malpractice.

Many people know someone who experienced a medical mistake. It could be a friend or a family member or
even yourself. What happens after you learn that an injury was caused by a mistake? This is where
negligence comes in.

For example, a 60-year-old male patient goes into a hospital for a routine procedure such as a colonoscopy.
After the surgery, his wife is told that he is in recovery, and everything is going to be fine. The wife is relieved
and starts calling family to let them know everything is fine and that he is recovering. A couple of hours go by,
and his wife is waiting patiently to see her husband. She is told she can see him after he wakes up from the
anesthesia. Another hour goes by, and the wife starts to worry. She asks the nurse for an update, and she
repeats the same thing. The wife can see him when he is out of the holding area and moved into the recovery
room. When a total of four hours goes by, she is getting very concerned and demands to see the doctor.
Before the nurse can ring the doctor, the doctor appears in the waiting room to speak to her. The doctor tells
the patient’s wife that her husband had a reaction in the recovery room to the anesthesia and passed away
shortly after regaining consciousness. The woman immediately collapses in grief.

Weeks after her husband’s death, she contacts the hospital to find out what happened. The hospital repeats
that he had a reaction to the anesthesia and never regained consciousness. This, however, was not what she
was told at the hospital. She keeps getting conflicting reports or no information at all. This leads her to file a
lawsuit against the hospital, the doctor, and the nurses who treated her husband. She files a claim of medical
malpractice.

Intentional Torts

In contrast to acts of negligence are intentional torts. The primary difference between acts of negligence and
intentional torts is, of course, the intent behind the tort. This means that the plaintiff must prove that the
defendant intended the action, regardless of the result or injury of the plaintiff. The intentional torts include the
following: assault, battery, false imprisonment, defamation, fraud, invasion of privacy, and intentional infliction
of mental distress.

The following scenario further explains the concept of intentional torts.

In general, the claim of assault does not require actual physical contact with the victim; it only requires the
threat of harmful contact. Threatening someone that you are standing close to can be an assault.

Sarah works for a terrible boss. Her boss John is verbally abusive and rude, but since it is a job that pays
well, she never really pays attention to what he says. Instead, she just tolerates it. He does not make any
harassing or sexually offensive remarks. He is just loud and rude. Sarah has worked for John for five years.

One morning, Sarah was getting everything ready for the day. She had come to work a little early and was
straightening up her desk to tackle her day.

MHA 5101, Legal Foundations of Health Care 3

UNIT x STUDY GUIDE
Title

Yesterday, after John left, she had taken a message. John’s sister had called and said not to forget his
brother’s birthday party this Saturday. She had left the written message on John’s desk and started her day
the next morning while waiting for him to come in.

John came marching into the office looking very agitated, more so than usual. Sarah was working at her desk.
Suddenly, her chair is spun around while she is sitting in it, and John is standing before her, enraged. Sarah
almost falls out of her chair. John raises his hand, and Sarah thinks for sure he was going to hit her. She curls
up in a ball and prepares for him to hit her. John suddenly slams his hand down on her desk next to her and
starts screaming that the message was from his sister-in-law because his sister has been dead for six
months. He continues to scream and physically threaten her by his stance and raising and lowering his fist.

John never actually touches Sarah, but she is terrified and in real fear for her safety. As soon as John leaves
to go back to his office, Sarah grabs her purse and goes running out of the building. She is so scared that she
goes straight home and does not even tell HR. Sarah is told she has abandoned her job and is fired.

Once she has calmed down, she brings a lawsuit against John and the company. John is outraged when he is
dragged into the human resources (HR) office. He admits he lost his temper at Sarah’s incompetence, but he
tells HR and the company’s in-house counsel he never touched her. He did not hit her or touch her at all. He
just yelled.

John is terminated for assaulting another employee.

In this case, the intent behind the tort was evident by John’s actions. He intentionally spun Sarah’s chair,
intentionally threatened her, and intentionally pounded his fist. It does not matter what he intended the
outcome to be. He has committed an assault by threatening Sarah. An assault can occur without any contact.
It is based upon the threat the victim feels.

Criminal Aspects of Health Care

Most of what we have discussed so far has involved civil claims, which are claims brought by one person
against another seeking monetary damages. This is different from criminal charges. Criminal charges are
brought by a governmental entity, such as the local, state, or federal government. While some of the
intentional torts also have a criminal counterpart, there a number of criminal claims that are within the
healthcare spectrum.

Patients and the government can file criminal charges within their jurisdictions for fraud, abuse, criminal
negligence, murder, rape and sexual assault, or theft. These are some of the possible criminal charges in the
healthcare field.

Criminal negligence, for instance, requires a higher burden of proof for the government.

For example, a patient is recovering from surgery. He calls the nurse and asks for pain medication. The nurse
asks the doctor who is on call that night. That doctor is tired and waiting for his shift to end so he can go on
vacation. He is annoyed that he has to work and wants to leave. When he responds to the nurse, he tells her
the patient can have painkillers and writes down the amount and dosage. The doctor, however, is in a hurry,
misplaces the decimal point, and unintentionally overdoses the patient by ten times the amount. The nurse
asks the doctor to confirm the dosage. The doctor yells at the nurse, “Of course it is correct! I wrote it. I am
the doctor! Just administer it like a nurse should.”

The nurse tells the doctor she would just call the next doctor to confirm the dosage if he did not have time.
The doctor responds with the following: “Your job is not to question me, and if it happens again, I will get
you fired!”

The nurse is scared for her job and follows the doctor’s orders. The dosage is to be repeated every four
hours. The patient dies from the repeated overdoses in the next 48 hours.

MHA 5101, Legal Foundations of Health Care 4

UNIT x STUDY GUIDE
Title

In this instance, the doctor could be accused of criminal negligence because of his total disregard for patient
safety. If the patient had received one or even two overdoses, it is possible he could have recovered. The
doctor and hospital could have been sued civilly for medical malpractice, but in this case, the doctor made the
error and prevented the nurse from catching it. This could rise to the level of criminal negligence since the
doctor did not allow the nurse to double-check the dosage which could have saved the patient’s life.

In conclusion, health care has many legal risks and potential hazards for both providers and patients. Patients
have the ability to bring claims against providers who have injured them. The government has the ability to
bring criminal charges against providers whose actions against patients rise to the level of criminal activity, as
in the example above.