Ethical and Legal Duties of Health Care Administrators

Ethical and Legal Duties of Health Care Administrators

Breaches of law and ethics can occur in all areas of health care. When this happens at higher levels of an organization the breach can have a particularly negative impact, because health care leaders set the tone for an entire organization. In this Discussion you will assess how administrators should address legal and ethical challenges in a selected case study, and describe the role administrators can and should play in ensuring that an organization adheres to sound ethical standards.

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Review the following segments from this week’s Learning Resources, and select one of the scenarios on which to focus in your initial posting. (Note: In your response, you will address at least one colleague’s posting on the other scenario.)

• Scenario: “Appearance May Not Be Reality” (pp. 272-273)
• Scenario: “Corporate Coverup” (pp. 289-290)
• Code of Ethics for Organizations (pp. 263-264)
• ACHE Code of Ethics (http://www.ache.org/abt_ache/code.cfm)

To prepare for this Discussion:

• Using your textbook’s descriptions of law and ethics, identify specific ethical and legal issues of your selected scenario.
• What would you do in this position? The steps described in the article “An Organizational Ethics Decision-Making Process” will help you in this process. Identify elements in the ACHE Code of Ethics that apply in this scenario.
• Consider the ways in which health care administrators can impact how others in the organization perform their legal and ethical duties. Besides modeling good behavior, what are the kinds of documents, policies, procedures, and other decisions an administrator can institute to set the tone within an organization about the importance of legal and ethical standards?