A Few Words about Health Care Law

Every person has the right to health care and the opportunity to achieve the highest possible level of health. Every person is obliged to take care of their health. No one should endanger the health of other people. Every person is obliged to provide first aid to an injured or sick person in accordance with their knowledge and abilities and to provide them with access to the nearest medical institution. Every citizen has the right to health care while respecting the highest possible standard of human rights and values, i.e. the right to physical and mental integrity and security of his personality, as well as respect for his moral, cultural, religious and philosophical beliefs.

An educational video improves physician knowledge of a public health care law that affects patient care during hospital clinical practice

When public health laws are passed that affect clinical practice within hospitals, it is important to educate physicians about best practices in implementing these laws into routine patient care in hospitals. An educational video was developed to inform physicians about a new state public health care law. This study sought to determine whether an educational video about a new state public health care law improves physicians’ knowledge of the law and how to implement the law during clinical practice. A total of n=33 internal medicine physicians participated in this study. This study found that an educational video was successful in increasing physician knowledge about a new public health care law that affects clinical practice. The utilization of validated educational videos may provide a useful resource when attempting to provide education about new public health laws that effect the provision of medical care

CONSTITUTIONAL AND ADMINISTRATIVE ASPECTS OF THE UKRAINE’S MEDICAL CODE

The aim of this study is to show which aspects of Ukraine’s constitutional and administrative law should appear in Ukraine’s future medical code. Materials and methods: The authors analyse five pieces of law or proposed law, including the 1996 Constitution’s provisions on health care, Law the Fundamentals of Health Protection and the main codes. The authors apply classical legal analysis to these laws – analyzing the first three chapters of the proposed medical code from a constitutional and administrative perspective. The other methods used by the authors are systemic, comparative and synergetic. Conclusion: Ukraine needs a medical code incorporating international and European health care standards. Such a code will also further develop the country’s medical legislation. Yet the proposed project has many constitutional and administrative weaknesses.

Fiduciary Principles in Health Care

This chapter examines fiduciary principles in health care law. There is no unanimous agreement when it comes to the precise doctrinal consequences of labeling health care actors as fiduciaries in various contexts, such as personal injury, decisional authority, financial influence, and procedural rules. In the case of patients and physicians, certain attributes are said to constitute an archetypal fiduciary relationship, including agency, dependency, trust, and information asymmetry. Thus, many legal decisions and commentators argue that physicians have fiduciary responsibilities to patients. For courts, however, hospitals are not fiduciaries. They regard private hospitals as ordinary commercial enterprises. This chapter first provides an overview of arguments over whether physicians and non-physicians (for example, hospitals and health insurers) are “fiduciaries” before discussing health care fiduciaries’ duty of loyalty and duty of care, along with their other obligations such as duties of confidentiality and full disclosure. It also explores the ability of health care fiduciaries and patients to waive fiduciary duties, as well as how courts have addressed distinct causes of action for physicians’ breach of fiduciary duty. It shows that courts often invoke fiduciary concepts and terminology in discussing physicians’ obligations to patients, and that physician-patient (and other medical treatment) relationships have classic attributes of fiduciary status.