Category: Free Articles

There are unique ethical and legal obligations of the Emergency Room Physician. Commonly faced issues include patient “dumping”, organ donation, and Do-Not Resuscitate orders. These issues have ethical and legal considerations for the Emergency Room Physician in regards to their responsibilities and actions. The ethical right for individuals to have access to health care already has a form of legal binding within the United States as seen in the Emergency Medical Treatment and Active Labor Act. “In 1986, Congress passed the Emergency Medical Treatment and Active Labor Act (EMTALA), which forbids Medicare-participating hospitals from “dumping” patients out of emergency departments” (Pozgar, 2010, p. 221). The act provides that: In the case of a hospital that has a hospital emergency department, if any individual (whether or not eligible for benefits under this sub- chapter) comes to the emergency department and a request is made on the individual’s behalf for examination or treatment for a medical condition, the hospital must provide for […]

Background and History CareGroup, Inc. is the parent holding company of Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center, Beth Israel Deaconess Hospital-Milton, Beth Israel Deaconess Hospital-Needham, Mount Auburn Hospital, and New England Baptist Hospital. On October 1, 1996 three prominent hospitals (the Beth Israel Hospital, the Deaconess Hospital and the Mount Auburn Hospital) in eastern Massachusetts merged together to form this organization. The organization was formed for three key factors. Firstly, the intense competitive environment within the industry in the mid-1990s had driven many hospitals to join forces to gain contracting power against HMOs. Secondly, there was a strong demand for hospitals to strengthen their balance sheets in a complex price war due to excess supply. Lastly, merging hospitals had the opportunity to develop integrated services that could greatly improve the quality of health care as well as cut down costs. Originally formed as a care-delivery system of hospitals and physicians, CareGroup has evolved into a confederation model in the past decade […]

Provision of universal health coverage has been debated in the Senate and the House of Representatives of the US Congress, and it seems that some Republicans oppose the bill on this major public health policy. According to Curry (2009), 46 million Americans do not have health insurance, and this group comprises 15% of the total American population. Isn’t this figure significant, which clearly speaks out about the poverty of some unfortunate Americans, who can not afford to pay for their health insurance in the richest country of the world? However, due to the persistent efforts of President Barack Obama, who kept his promise that he had made to the American citizens during his election campaign, the reforms bill was introduced by the Democrats in the US Congress. When a patient without health insurance does not visit a doctor for a minor illness, then the minor illness, eventually, worsens into a chronic illness, or a life-threatening disease. It is only then […]

According to Sapru (2004), ‘Public Policy’ as an academic pursuit emerged in the beginning of 1950s and since then it has been acquiring new dimensions, and is struggling hard to acknowledge the status of a discipline in the comity of social sciences. As a study of products of government, policy forms a significant component in many a course and programme in numerous disciplines—political science, public administration, economics, management. So rapid is the growth that many researchers, teachers, public administrators now feel that it is becoming more and more unmanageable. The disciplines need to comprehend public policy cut right across the old academic lines of demarcation. Indeed it is this interdisciplinary quality which makes the field of public policy interesting and thought provoking. ‘Public policy’ is a concept now much in vogue. It is frequently used term in our daily life and in our academic literature, where we often make references to the national health policy, the new education policy, wage […]

If they don’t die, children are very likely to be maimed for life and this is not a desirable result either. Many measles deaths have been reported and such grim statistics will be included in the nationwide campaign to convince the parents who have refused to vaccinate their children that through their refusal, they could actually be killing their children. The campaign will also publicize the effects of measles on adults who are also susceptible to the disease if they did not receive any vaccination in their childhood. It is important to bring in relevant real examples from countries such as Vietnam where a measles epidemic is decimating the population and it is actually targeting the adults more than the children; probably because the adults have not yet been immunized. The people being treated for measles by the National Hospital for Infectious and Tropical Diseases are all in comas and are said to be in critical condition (VOVNews 2009). In […]