Week 2 – Assignment

Health Care Relationships and Liability

“Before an individual can bring a lawsuit to establish some form of liability against a health care provider, the individual must have established a relationship with that provider. Without this relationship, the parties to a lawsuit are basically strangers who have no obligation to each other that could serve as the basis for a malpractice lawsuit” (McWay, 2010, p.68).

Using Fig. 4.1 from your course text, define and describe the health care relationships most common to legal action in the field of health care. Your analysis of these relationships should include:

1. Physician-Patient Relationships
a. How can this relationship be terminated?2. Hospital-Patient Relationships
a. What impact, if any, does the EMTALA have on this relationship?3. Hospital-Physician Relationships
a. What is the role of medical staff privileges in this relationship?4. Enrichment Activity
a. Construct a series of flowcharts (a minimum of three).  Each flowchart should illustrate a health care relationship, a type of lawsuit, and a defense that could be raised.  (“SmartArt” is a function of the most recent Microsoft Word versions that could be used to create flowcharts.  It is located under the “Insert” tab on the tool ribbon at the top of the page, within Word)  

b. Compare the differences between the flowcharts, and determine whether any of the elements in your flowcharts can be interchanged with another element. Can health care reform improve the dynamics of these relationships? If so, how?

Your paper should be three- to four- pages in length (excluding title and reference pages) and utilize at least three to four scholarly sources, not including your course text.  All must be formatted according to APA guidelines as outlined in the Ashford Writing Center.  

Carefully review the Grading Rubric for the criteria that will be used to evaluate your assignment.