This volume presents, from an international legal perspective, research on the legal liability of hospitals in the USA, Canada, the United Kingdom, Australia, and South Africa. It describes and explains the following grounds or theories which establish liability in the legal systems of the various countries: - indirect or vicarious liability; - direct or primary liability; - liability in terms of the non-delegable duty; - breach of contract; and - doctrines invoking liability. Detailed discussion of case law - including cases involving such related areas as the liability of airlines, shipping companies, and other groups - shows how the different grounds in various countries' legal systems are successfully applied. The Legal Liability of Hospitals will be of great value to practising lawyers, law students and teachers, and health care management officials.

This is a comprehensive reference text that examines the current state of Legal Medicine, which encompasses Forensic Medicine, in the 21st century. It examines the scope of both legal and forensic medicine, its application and study and has adopted a wide ranging approach including multinational authorship. It reviews the differences between and similarities of forensic and legal medicine, the need for academic qualification, the applications to many and varied fields including international aid, military medicine, health law and the application of medical knowledge to both criminal law and tort/civil law, sports medicine and law, gender and age related factors from obstetrics through to geriatrics and palliative care as well as cultural differences exploring the Christian/Judeo approach compared with that within Islamic cultures, Buddhism and Hinduism. The book looks at practical applications of legal medicine within various international and intercultural frameworks. This is a seminal authoritative text in legal and forensic medicine. It has a multi-author and multinational approach which crosses national boundaries. There is a great interest in the development of health law and legal medicine institutes around the world and this text comes in on the ground floor of this burgeoning discipline and provides the foundation text for many courses, both undergraduate and postgraduate. It defines the place of legal medicine as a specialized discipline.​

v. 1. Research findings -- v. 2. Concepts and methodology -- v. 3. Implementation issues -- v. 4. Programs, tools and products.

Hospitals - definition and classification; hospitals managed under the National Health Service Act 1977; voluntary hospitals; nursing homes - registration, conduct and inspection; legal proceedings against Health Authorities and Trusts; injury to the patient; consent to medical and associated treatment; complaints in the National Health Service; liability for premises; patients' property - loss or damage; visitors who refuse to leave; search and arrest of suspected persons; data protection; access to medical records and reports; medical records - ownership and preservation; professional confidence; employment law; nurses agencies; professional qualifications; injury at work; the charity commissioners and charity trustees; hospital charges; provision of pay beds; taxation of hospitals; births and deaths in hospital; organ transplants and disposal of the human body; patient making a will; illegal operations; notifiable diseases; medicines and poisons; mental health law.

Using the same approach, this text provides a distillation of the widely popular Legal Aspects of Health Care Administration. It presents an overview of health law topics in an interesting and understandable format, leading the reader through the complicated maze of the legal system. The topics presented in this book create a strong foundation in health law. This book is a sound reference for those who wish to become more informed about how the law, ethics, and health care intersect. Features: A historical perspective on the development of hospitals, illustrating both their progress and failures through the centuries. Actual court cases, state and federal statutes, and common-law principles are examined. A broad discussion of the legal system, including the sources of law and government organization. A basic review of tort law, criminal issues, contracts, civil procedure and trial practice, and a wide range of real life legal and ethical dilemmas that caregivers have faced as they wound their way through the courts. An overview of various ways to improve the quality and delivery of health care.

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.​

In response to a request from the Secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services, the Institute of Medicine convened a committee to identify possible demonstration projects that might be implemented in 2003, with the hope of yielding models for broader health system reform within a few years. The committee is recommending a substantial portfolio of demonstration projects, including chronic care and primary care demonstrations, information and communications technology infrastructure demonstrations, health insurance coverage demonstrations, and liability demonstrations. As a set, the demonstrations address key aspects of the health care delivery system and the financing and legal environment in which health care is provided. The launching of a carefully crafted set of demonstrations is viewed as a way to initiate a "building block" approach to health system change.