Clinical guidelines: proliferation and medicolegal significance.

نویسنده

  • B Hurwitz
چکیده

Guidelines seeking to influence and regulate clinical activity are currently gaining a new cultural ascendancy on both sides of the Atlantic. Statutory agencies may be charged with developing clinical guidelines, and civil courts, in deciding actions in negligence, could be influenced by standards of care expressed in guideline statements. Clinical guidelines are not accorded unchallengeable status: they have been subject to careful scrutiny by British and American courts to establish their authenticity and relevance. In the United States, compliance with clinical guidelines cannot be used as a defence against liability if a physician's conduct is held to have been negligent, and third party organisations can be held liable if their clinical guidelines are found to be a contributory cause of patient harm. Guidelines have not usurped the role of the expert witness in court. The importance the law attaches to customary practice means that atypical or bizarre guidelines are unlikely to be accepted as embodying a legally required standard of clinical care.

برای دانلود رایگان متن کامل این مقاله و بیش از 32 میلیون مقاله دیگر ابتدا ثبت نام کنید

ثبت نام

اگر عضو سایت هستید لطفا وارد حساب کاربری خود شوید

منابع مشابه

Guidelines for quantification of noise-induced hearing loss in a medicolegal context.

OBJECTIVES Guidelines published in 2000 by the authors are widely used by medical and legal professionals in the UK for diagnosis of noise-induced hearing loss in a medicolegal context. However, they cannot be used for quantification of the noise-induced hearing loss, which is required in most cases. This requirement is addressed. DESIGN A method is developed here to quantify noise-induced he...

متن کامل

Pathological examination of the placenta: raison d'être, clinical relevance and medicolegal utility.

Formal pathological examination of the placenta provides valuable information to the obstetrician, neonatologist, paediatrician and family. This article aims to provide the clinician with an overview of the significance of placental examination in relation to common or important pathological processes, and the utility of information obtained therein in explaining adverse outcomes, management of...

متن کامل

Medicolegal implications of surgical errors and complications in neck surgery: A review based on the Italian current legislation

Aim of the present paper is the review of the principal complications associated to endocrine neck surgery considering how expertise, full adoption of guidelines, appropriate technology and proper informed consent may limit the medicolegal claims at the light of the incoming new regulation of the medical professional legal responsibility. A literature search, using the Medline/PubMed database f...

متن کامل

Surgeons' opinions about the NHMRC clinical practice guidelines for the management of early breast cancer.

OBJECTIVE To explore the opinions of surgeons about the NHMRC clinical practice guidelines for the management of early breast cancer (the Guidelines) and their views about and use of the accompanying Consumer's guide. DESIGN Cross-sectional telephone survey. PARTICIPANTS AND SETTING Surgeons throughout Australia who manage breast cancer, designated as "breast" or "general" (members or non-m...

متن کامل

Guidelines on the diagnosis of noise-induced hearing loss for medicolegal purposes.

These guidelines aim to assist in the diagnosis of noise-induced hearing loss (NIHL) in medicolegal settings. The task is to distinguish between possibility and probability, the legal criterion being 'more probable than not'. It is argued that the amount of NIHL needed to qualify for that diagnosis is that which is reliably measurable and identifiable on the audiogram. The three main requiremen...

متن کامل

ذخیره در منابع من


  با ذخیره ی این منبع در منابع من، دسترسی به آن را برای استفاده های بعدی آسان تر کنید

عنوان ژورنال:
  • Quality in health care : QHC

دوره 3 1  شماره 

صفحات  -

تاریخ انتشار 1994