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ChefRhinoceros2405
Compliance Scenario 3 Dr. H, one of the physicians employed by your…
Compliance Scenario 3
Dr. H, one of the physicians employed by your facility, sent a memo to your office to make you aware of a potential issue that happened within her office: Dr. H employs a physician assistant (PA) who has been seeing a patient with persistent laryngitis for a few months. The PA prescribed several rounds of antibiotics, but the patient’s condition remained unresolved. Frustrated, the patient saw a specialist in another city who diagnosed her with a cancerous nodule on her vocal cord. Upon receiving the patient’s records from the other physician, Dr. H. is concerned that this situation could be grounds for a lawsuit.
Analyze and critically evaluate the compliance scenario and 250 word report to the Compliance Manager that includes a brief restatement of the scenario and recommendations/solutions supported by references.
Points to consider as you write your recommendation:
Is there any other information you might want to know from Dr. H. or her PA?
If a lawsuit were to be brought forward, which parties could be held liable?
What are some examples of legislative and/or case law that might be applicable to this scenario?
Compliance Scenario 4
Your facility has been served with a lawsuit by Mr. and Mrs. C, parents of D.C, a minor child. The suit alleges that last summer D.C. was brought to the Emergency Room for a head laceration after falling at the playground. The attending Emergency Room physician treated the laceration with 15 stitches, and also provided follow-up care by removing the stitches a week after the procedure.
In the suit, the parents claim they were never provided information that the wound was severe enough to warrant a plastic surgery consultation, and never given the option of having a plastic surgeon perform the procedure. They are unhappy with the appearance of the scar on their daughter’s forehead and allege that it would have been less prominent had the procedure been performed by a plastic surgeon, who is a medical doctor (M.D.), rather than the attending Emergency Room physician, who is a doctor of osteopathy (D.O.). The parents claim they would never have agreed to the Emergency Room physician performing the procedure if they had known they had the option of having the on-call plastic surgeon perform the procedure.
Their lawsuit alleges they did not have all the information necessary to consent to this procedure on behalf of their daughter.
You pulled the patient’s record, and you find no mention of the Emergency Room physician discussing the option of a plastic surgery consultation with the family prior to obtaining consent for the procedure.
Analyze and critically evaluate the compliance scenario and 250 word report to the Compliance Manager that includes a brief restatement of the scenario and recommendations/solutions supported by references.
Points to consider:
Does this scenario meet the criteria for Informed Consent? Which component(s) is/are lacking?
Does the hospital have any protocol on when specialty consultations are required? (It is not specified in the scenario. If you want to draft your own consultation protocol, feel free.) If so, did the Emergency Room physician follow protocol?
What are some examples of legislative and/or case law that might be applicable to this scenario?
