Patient Care
 Ethical and Legal Aspects 

Patient’s Rights
•	informed consent
–	Information necessary to make an informed consent
•	Benefits and risks of procedure
•	Alternative procedures
•	Risks of electing no treatment 
Who’s responsible to make sure a consent was completed?
•	Technologist- must check the chart before a procedure to verify that the consent form was signed.  
Conditions for Valid 
Patient Consent
•	The patient must be of legal age
•	The patient must be of sound mind
•	The patient must give consent freely
•	The patient must be adequately informed of the procedure
Exceptions to informed consent
•	Emergency
•	Therapeutic privilege: Where disclosure of all facts would be detrimental to or have substantial adverse affect on the patient, the physician may withhold certain information. Therapeutic privilege is rarely justified. 
•	Court ordered
HIPAA
•	Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996
•	Confidentiality
•	Penalties 
–	Both fines ($100-50,000) and imprisonment
•	PHI- protected health information
–	Any identifiable information 

Patient’s Bill of Rights

	 Page 3-4 in PREP book
–	extent of care 
–	privacy
–	access to information 
–	living will
–	research participation

Legal Issues 
examination requisition

–	Only a physician can request x-ray examinations
–	Information that should appear on requisition
•	Name
•	Age
•	Facility
•	Physician's name
•	ID number
•	Mode of transportation
•	Examination
•	Infection control information 

Legal terminology
–	Assault
–	Breech
–	Civil Law
–	Criminal Law
–	Duty	
–	Felony
–	Liable

–	Libel
–	Negligence
–	Reciprocity
–	Res Ipsa Loquitur
–	Statute of Limitations
–	Subpoena
–	Tort

legal doctrines
•	is a framework, set of rules, procedural steps 

•	Standard of Care-
•	Res ipsa loquitur The thing speaks for itself. A presumption that the defendant was negligent 
•	Vicarious Liability- imposes responsibility upon one person for the failure of another 
–	Respondent Superior- Latin for almost obvious
ARRT Standards of Ethics
•	List is included in the ARRT application

Interpersonal Communication
–	Modes of Communication
•	verbal/written
•	 nonverbal (e.g., eye contact, touching) 

Challenges in Communication

•	1. patient characteristics
•	2. explanation of medical terms
–	DOA
–	Tx
–	Dx
–	p/o
–	Bx
–	Cc
–	BP

•	3. strategies to improve understanding 

–	y/o
–	QID
–	NPO
–	r/o
–	IM
–	CA
–	Hx
–	BE

Patient Education
•	 explanation of current procedure
•	 be able to answer a patients questions