Guidelines are powerful instruments of assistance to clinicians, capable of extending the clinical roles of nurses and pharmacists. Purchasers and managers perceive them as technological tools guaranteeing treatment quality. Guidelines also offer mechanisms by which doctors and other health care professionals can be made more accountable to their patients. - But how can clinicians tell whether a guideline has authority, and whether or not it should be followed? - Does the law protect doctors who comply with guidelines? - Are guideline developers liable for faulty advice? This timely book provides a comprehensive and accessible analysis of the many medical and legal issues arising from the current explosion of clinical guidelines. Featuring clear summaries of relevant UK, US and Commonwealth case law, it is vital reading for all doctors, health care workers, managers, purchasers, patients, and lawyers.

This book critically considers the dynamic relationship between clinical guidelines and medical negligence litigation, arguing that a balance must be struck between blinkered reliance on guidelines and casual disregard. It explores connections between academic law and professional practice, bringing together an array of perspectives which reveal that although guidelines may not be dispositive, they nonetheless play an important role in medical negligence law.

When data from all aspects of our lives can be relevant to our health - from our habits at the grocery store and our Google searches to our FitBit data and our medical records - can we really differentiate between big data and health big data? Will health big data be used for good, such as to improve drug safety, or ill, as in insurance discrimination? Will it disrupt health care (and the health care system) as we know it? Will it be possible to protect our health privacy? What barriers will there be to collecting and utilizing health big data? What role should law play, and what ethical concerns may arise? This timely, groundbreaking volume explores these questions and more from a variety of perspectives, examining how law promotes or discourages the use of big data in the health care sphere, and also what we can learn from other sectors.

Medical responsibility lawsuits have become a fact of life in every physician’s medical practice. However, there is evidence that physicians are increasingly practising defensive medicine, ordering more tests than may be necessary and avoiding patients with complicated conditions. The modern practice of medicine is increasingly complicated by factors beyond the traditional realm of patient care, including novel technologies, loss of physician autonomy, and economic pressures. A continuing and significant issue affecting physicians and the healthcare system is malpractice. In the latter half of the 20th century, there was a major change in the attitude of the public towards the medical profession. People were made aware of the huge advances in medical technology, because health problems increasingly tended to attract media interest and wide publicity. Medicine is a victim of its own success in this respect, and people are now led to expect the latest techniques and perfect outcomes on all occasions. This burst of technology and hyper-specialization in many fields of medicine means that each malpractice claim is transformed into a scientific challenge, requiring specific preparation in analysis and judgment of the clinical case in question. The role of legal medicine becomes more and more peculiar in this judicial setting, often giving rise to erroneous interpretations and hasty scientific verdicts, but guidelines on the methodology of ascertainments and criteria of evaluation are lacking all over the world.The aim of this volume is to clarify the steps required for sequential in-depth analysis of events and consequences of medical actions, in order to verify whether, in the presence of damage, errors or non-observance of rules of conduct by health personnel exist, and which causal values and links of their hypothetical misconduct are involved.​

The Medical-Legal Aspects of Acute Care Medicine: A Resource for Clinicians, Administrators, and Risk Managers is a comprehensive resource intended to provide a state-of-the-art overview of complex ethical, regulatory, and legal issues of importance to clinical healthcare professionals in the area of acute care medicine; including, for example, physicians, advanced practice providers, nurses, pharmacists, social workers, and care managers. In addition, this book also covers key legal and regulatory issues relevant to non-clinicians, such as hospital and practice administrators; department heads, educators, and risk managers. This text reviews traditional and emerging areas of ethical and legal controversies in healthcare such as resuscitation; mass-casualty event response and triage; patient autonomy and shared decision-making; medical research and teaching; ethical and legal issues in the care of the mental health patient; and, medical record documentation and confidentiality. Furthermore, this volume includes chapters dedicated to critically important topics, such as team leadership, the team model of clinical care, drug and device regulation, professional negligence, clinical education, the law of corporations, tele-medicine and e-health, medical errors and the culture of safety, regulatory compliance, the regulation of clinical laboratories, the law of insurance, and a practical overview of claims management and billing. Authored by experts in the field, The Medical-Legal Aspects of Acute Care Medicine: A Resource for Clinicians, Administrators, and Risk Managers is a valuable resource for all clinical and non-clinical healthcare professionals.

Clinical Negligence claims currently cost the NHS over £2 billion every year. Litigation is time-consuming, expensive and stressful for all involved. For those whose lives have been changed dramatically as a result of negligent medical treatment, bringing a claim may be the only means of obtaining redress for the harm done to them. But the process of litigation can be a bewildering and sometimes hostile experience. For many healthcare professionals the fear of litigation is a real concern and there is deep anxiety that litigation contributes to an unhealthy, even dangerous culture of blame. Clinical Negligence Made Clear: A Guide for Patients and Professionals is an attempt by one the country’s leading clinical negligence practitioners to help all those who might be affected by such cases to understand what is involved and thereby to reduce the cost and emotional impact of clinical negligence litigation. In concise, accessible language Nigel Poole QC charts how clinical negligence has evolved, its place within the justice system and how compensation is assessed explains ten core legal principles of clinical negligence such as the doctor’s duty of care and the standards expected of healthcare professionals sets out how a claim proceeds and what happens before and during a trial focuses on specific common areas of clinical negligence claims such as wrongful birth, delays in cancer treatment and cosmetic surgery looks to the future and asks whether the current system is sustainable The aim is to provide an intelligent but accessible guide for patients, doctors, nurses, therapists, expert witnesses, and healthcare managers so that those caught up in legal proceedings have a realistic view of the impact they will have and a clearer understanding of when a dispute might be best resolved early. No doubt it will also provide a lively introduction to the subject for students, trainees and lawyers looking to move into clinical negligence work.