Health Care Ethics and Law

Autonomy is the principle that respects the patient's right to make decisions about their own healthcare, including the right to refuse treatment.

HIPAA is a federal law that creates national standards to protect sensitive patient health information, known as protected health information (PHI).

Informed consent is a legal and ethical principle that requires healthcare professionals to provide patients with all the relevant information about a treatment, including the risks, benefits, and alternatives, before the patient makes a decision about whether to consent to the treatment.

Beneficence is the principle that requires healthcare professionals to take actions that are in the best interests of the patient, even if those actions may cause some harm.

Non-maleficence is the principle that requires healthcare professionals to avoid causing harm to patients, even if those actions may benefit the patient.

Justice is the principle that requires healthcare professionals to treat all patients fairly and equitably, regardless of their race, ethnicity, gender, sexual orientation, or other characteristics.

The right to die is a legal doctrine that allows healthcare professionals to withhold life-sustaining treatment from patients who are terminally ill or in a persistent vegetative state, if the patient has made a clear and informed decision to refuse treatment.

The doctrine of substituted judgment allows healthcare professionals to make decisions about a patient's healthcare when the patient is unable to make decisions for themselves, by considering what the patient would have wanted if they were able to make the decision.

The doctrine of double effect allows healthcare professionals to administer a treatment that has both a desired effect and an undesired side effect, as long as the desired effect outweighs the undesired side effect and the healthcare professional intends only the desired effect.

The doctrine of sovereign immunity protects healthcare professionals from liability for damages caused by their negligence, if the healthcare professionals were acting within the scope of their employment and the negligence was not willful or wanton.

The doctrine of conscientious objection allows healthcare professionals to refuse to provide treatment to patients based on their religious or moral beliefs, if the healthcare professionals provide the patient with an effective referral to another healthcare professional who is willing to provide the treatment.

The doctrine of necessity allows healthcare professionals to disclose patient information to third parties without the patient's consent, if the disclosure is necessary to prevent a serious harm to the patient or to others.

The doctrine of public health necessity allows healthcare professionals to disclose patient information to third parties for research purposes, if the research is in the public interest and the patient's identity is protected.

The doctrine of crime-fraud exception allows healthcare professionals to disclose patient information to third parties for law enforcement purposes, if the patient is suspected of committing a crime or fraud.

The doctrine of peer review privilege allows healthcare professionals to disclose patient information to third parties for quality assurance purposes, if the disclosure is made to a peer review committee for the purpose of evaluating the quality of healthcare services.