By Sarah Gabriele
Doctors are now using social media platforms to spread medical knowledge and to interact with the communities that they are actively building.
This trend poses new ethical questions for physicians who want to create and engage with their communities on social media. Read More
By Nina Kohn and Irina D. Manta
This month, New York became the latest to join the growing list of states that have ended their requirements for routine masking in hospitals and other healthcare settings.
In response, at least one of the state’s largest hospital systems is throwing off the mask despite the continued high level of virus transmission in New York City and most of the rest of the state. NYU’s Langone hospital system decided that — outside of the Emergency Room — patients would generally only be required to mask “if they have fever and cough” (query what percentage of individuals with recent COVID-19 infections did not have this specific combo of symptoms — spoiler: it’s probably high). Similarly, the hospital announced that masking by direct care staff was optional in most situations, with masks required mainly during certain procedures, in particular patient rooms, or — more cryptically — when “there is concern for exposure to infectious aerosols.”
Ending routine masking in hospital settings is a dangerous move. It puts patients and staff at risk for infection, and its potential long-term effects. It also exposes hospitals to the risk of liability.
By Claudia E. Haupt
Why does the law sanction giving bad advice to one patient, while it permits giving bad advice to millions of YouTube or television viewers, which may result in significant physical harm?
We might call this the “Dr. Oz paradox.” Dr. Mehmet Oz, the Republican candidate in Pennsylvania’s U.S. Senate race, is a famous television personality as well as a licensed physician. But, according to one study, half of his publicly disseminated medical advice is wrong. Yet, his sizable audience may very well follow it anyway, and perhaps suffer harm as a result. Such bad advice, which could get any doctor in legal trouble if disseminated to their patients, may be given to the public at large without fear of sanction. The consequences of this sharp doctrinal distinction can be quite jarring.
By James W. Lytle
Concerns over New York State’s response to the COVID-19 pandemic, particularly with respect to its treatment of nursing homes, have recently re-emerged in light of a new report and court ruling related to the matter.
Almost from the outset of the pandemic, the State faced scrutiny as to whether it was accurately reporting deaths of nursing home patients.
After nursing homes complained in April about the lack of PPE and other resources to combat the pandemic, Governor Andrew Cuomo responded that it was not the state’s responsibility, and asked the Department of Health and the Attorney General to launch investigations into nursing homes’ response to the pandemic.
Nine months later, in late January 2021, the report by New York State Attorney General Letitia James of the nursing home investigation was released.
Among the report’s headlines, the Attorney General’s preliminary analysis found that the Department of Health had undercounted deaths of nursing home residents due to COVID-19 by about 50%, largely because of the failure of the State to count the deaths of those residents who were transferred to hospitals immediately prior to their deaths. No other state excluded patients who had been transferred before death to hospitals from their nursing home fatality reports.
By James W. Lytle
While New York State has generally earned high marks for its response to the COVID-19 pandemic, nagging questions continue over whether more might have been done to protect patients in nursing homes and other congregate settings — and whether some of the state’s policies even may have made matters worse.
Lessons from the New York State experience may prove helpful to those regions that have displaced New York as the epicenter of the American pandemic, and may help ensure that adequate steps are taken to protect the most frail and vulnerable among us from any resurgence of COVID-19 or from some future disease.
Although New York was among the hardest hit states, with the highest number of deaths thus far (over 32,000, more than twice as many as California), the aggressive steps taken by Governor Andrew Cuomo and his administration have been widely credited with reducing the spread of the disease in the State.
But a key, sustained criticism of the Governor’s handling of the pandemic focuses on the state’s nursing homes.
By James W. Lytle
When the scope of the COVID-19 pandemic became apparent, legal commentators, physician organizations, and health care policymakers sounded the alarm over the potential civil and criminal liabilities that practitioners and facilities might face during the emergency.
In short order, the federal government and many states enacted liability limitations. At least two states—Maryland and Virginia—had pre-existing legislation that was triggered by the emergency, while many other states enacted or are considering new legislation to limit liability during the crisis.
While the source (executive or legislative), scope (civil or criminal), and precise terms of these liability protections varied by jurisdiction, the speed with which they were enacted was remarkable, given the intensely contentious political battles that typically ensue over medical malpractice and civil justice reform.
Predictably, at least one state has already begun to tinker and fine-tune its liability limitations. Just three months and twenty-one days after liability protections were enacted, the New York State legislature sent a bill to Governor Andrew Cuomo that curbs those protections. The Governor signed the bill into law on August 3rd.
By Valerie Gutmann Koch
Since the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, clinicians and policymakers alike have raised the alarm about potential legal liability for following crisis standards of care.
Liability protections may be necessary when, due to the circumstances of the emergency, a state faces scarce resources (such as ventilators or ICU beds) and the state activates its crisis standards of care (CSC). A CSC authorizes the legal prioritization of patients for scarce resources based on changing circumstances and increased demands. CSCs provide a mechanism for reallocating staff, facilities, and supplies to meet needs during a public health emergency.
Notably, and by necessity, the standard of care that clinicians may be able to provide during the COVID-19 pandemic may depart significantly from standard non-emergency medical practice. In a non-crisis setting, the prevailing medical standard of care focuses on the needs of each individual patient and is centered on the principle of informed consent. In a public health emergency, however, such concentrated care may be impossible or inadvisable due to: (1) resource limitations and (2) the goal of saving as many lives as possible.
This is an excerpt of an article by Alaina Lancaster that originally appeared on Law.com. Read the full interview here.
After thousands of dollars of in vitro fertilization treatments and nine months of pregnancy, a New York couple was forced to give up the twins they birthed. It turns out CHA Fertility Center, the Los Angeles clinic where the couple sought IVF treatment, mixed up the embryos of three patients, resulting in two of the couples having to give up children to their genetic parents. Now, those parents are suing.
Dov Fox, professor of law at the University of San Diego and the director of the school’s Center for Health Law Policy & Bioethics, said the law has not caught up with reproductive technology and victims of this type of medical malpractice aren’t left with many legal options. Yet, legal frameworks are out there, Fox said. Judges and lawmakers just might need to look outside the U.S.
Many medical providers learn about the law the way kids learn about sex – whispers with friends, internet message boards, and media depictions of the most dramatic and unrealistic kind. And while both medical schools and junior high schools offer some type of formal education, it is quite limited, especially as compared to the information these students collect through other, less reputable, sources. As a result, many medical providers go into practice with a dark cloud over their heads – the “scared straight” model of legal education, if you will.
We’ve heard a lot about the practice of defensive medicine – ordering more tests and procedures than are medically necessary in an effort to protect oneself from potential liability. But fear of liability manifests itself in other, less dramatic, ways as well – for example, in overly-restrictive interpretations of HIPAA requirements that make it difficult for patients and their care providers to access needed medical information. In reality, however, much of the fear of liability experienced by medical professionals is unfounded.