Legal and Professional Issues in Nursing: Detailed Report

This report delves into the legal and ethical dimensions of nursing, focusing on the roles and impacts of ethics committees and health maintenance organizations (HMOs). The report analyzes the function of ethics committees in resolving internal conflicts within healthcare settings, setting standards for quality patient care, and ensuring compliance with legal and ethical guidelines. It also examines the structure and advantages and disadvantages of HMOs, highlighting their impact on patient care and access to specialized services. The report references key academic sources to support its claims and provide a comprehensive understanding of the complexities within the healthcare system.

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LEGAL AND PROFESSIONAL ISSUES IN NURSING
Student’s Name
Institutional Affiliation

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Question 1
Ethics committees are an important part of any institution or organization that deals with
the service of people. It is important for hospitals and healthcare facilities to have ethic
committees that serve to provide consultative help to physicians and patients’ families when
faced with ethical decisions. Ethics committees have therefore a wide range of roles that assist in
the internal operations of hospitals and healthcare units. These committees are involved in
conflict resolution among managers and workers within the healthcare facilities (Sauerland et al,
2019). They therefore help in solving of internal operational conflicts within hospital settings.
In addition to these, they are helpful In that they set standards that should be followed by
hospital workers and physicians in order to ensure that service delivered to patients is of high
quality. They do so by ensuring that ethical and moral conduct is observed by physicians and
nurses in the care of patients. There are certain external influences that affect the internal
operations of organizations. These include government laws and community participation within
hospitals. The ethic committees have a role in ensuring that managers comply with all legal
requirements when enforcing institutional policies (Kon et al, 2016). In addition to this, any
participation from outsiders should adhere to the ethical conduct as stipulated by these
committees.
Question 2
Health maintenance organizations are organizations that provide a list of doctors and
hospitals for a consumer to choose from in order to receive health care services (Ginter, Duncan
& Swayne, 2018). A health seeking person has therefore to choose a primary care physician who
will manage their care by coordinating services that they should receive on their behalf. There

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are several advantages associated with health maintenance organizations. These include the fact
that the arrangement helps lower general costs incurred by patients when seeking health. This is
because the chosen physicians plans for the patient’s treatment and links them with other
physicians for care without them having to look for one which can be costly.
Another advantage is that participants get to access specialized services since majority of
healthcare specialists tend to join these networks. Unlike the traditional insurance plan, HMOs
allow processes for appeal by clients in case they are not satisfied with the care provided
(Beaulieu & Lehoux, 2018). Some of the disadvantages of HMOs include the fact that it is quite
restrictive in nature since one can only pick a single primary physician. In addition to this,
referrals could be limited since participants can only be referred to only the physicians registered
in that network otherwise they will incur extra costs.

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REFERENCES
Beaulieu, M., & Lehoux, P. (2018). The emergence of health technology organizations among
institutional healthcare and economic actors. International Entrepreneurship and
Management Journal, 1-37.
Ginter, P. M., Duncan, W. J., & Swayne, L. E. (2018). The strategic management of health care
organizations. John Wiley & Sons.
Kon, A. A., Shepard, E. K., Sederstrom, N. O., Swoboda, S. M., Marshall, M. F., Birriel, B., &
Rincon, F. (2016). Defining futile and potentially inappropriate interventions: a policy
statement from the Society of Critical Care Medicine Ethics Committee. Critical care
medicine, 44(9), 1769-1774.
Sauerland, S., Fujita-Rohwerder, N., Zens, Y., & Molnar, S. (2019). Premarket evaluation of
medical devices: a cross-sectional analysis of clinical studies submitted to a German
ethics committee. BMJ open, 9(2), e027041.