| A | B |
|---|
| Abandonment of patient | Termination of a doctor-patient relationship by the physician, or health care provider without reasonable notice or provision for continuity of health care. |
| Access | Degree to which the health care system aids or inhibits an individual or group in gaining entry and receiving needed services in light of constraints in financing and delivery of care. |
| Active euthanasia | Intentional or direct ending of a human life either in response to a competent request or without such a request. |
| Advance directives | Instructions (usually written) from a competent individual that stipulates the forms of medical treatment to be provided by caregivers and/or designates someone to act as a proxy should the person at some future date lose decision making capacity. Living wills and durable powers of attorney for healthcare documents are common examples. Legal provisions vary from state to state. |
| Assault | An intentional physical attack designed to make the victim fearful; produces reasonable apprehension of harm. Actionable under criminal and civil law. |
| Assent | Agreement to research or treatment given by a mature minor not legally old enough to give a valid informed consent. |
| Autonomy | Derived from the Greek words meaning “self-rule”. Referring to the patient’s right of self-determination concerning medical care. |
| Battery | The willful touching of one person by another without permission. Actionable under criminal and civil law. |
| Beneficence | The state or act of intentionally doing or producing good.The principals involves duties to prevent harm, remove harm, and promote the good of another person. |
| Best Interest standard | A judgment based on an idea of what would be most beneficial to a patient, usually pursued in the absence of a patient’s expressed wishes. |
| Bioethics committees | An interdisciplinary group that deals with discusses policy issues and conflicts of values in patient acute care and long-term settings. |
| Capitation | A method of payment for health services often found in hmo’s and ppo’s. A provider is paid a fixed amount for each person served fro a period of time, without regard to the number or nature of the services provided to each person. |
| Certificate of need (CON) | A document provided by state regulators that limits capital expenditure by hospitals, nursing homes, and other institutional providers to prevent duplication of services and facilities. |
| Common law | Laws developed via precedents set in court decisions rather than those passed by legislatures. |
| Competent | A legal concept that describes people who are able to make decisions for themselves. |
| Confidentiality | The professional-client promise not to reveal information without consent. |
| Contract | A legally enforceable promissory agreement between two or more people that creates, alters, or terminates a legal promise to undertake stated obligations. |
| Cost benefit analysis | An analytic procedure to aid in balancing a procedure’s or program’s fiscal cost with its benefits, frequently expressed in dollars. |
| Cost containment | The effort to control the overall cost of the health care delivery system. Government and insurance regulations that endeavor to create a more cost-effective system. |
| Defendant | The person in a criminal case who is accused of committing a crime. The party in a civil action against whom suit is brought. |
| Deontologism | The ethical theory according to which actions are judged right or wrong based on their inherent characteristics or principles rather than on their consequences. |
| Deposition | A sworn statement made as part of the process of discovering the facts after a lawsuit has been filed. |
| Diagnosis related group (DRG) | A patient classification system utilized in the Medicare prospective payment system that relates demographic, diagnostic, and therapeutic characteristics of patients to length of inpatient stay and amount of resources consumed. |
| Do not resuscitate (DNR) | An order in a patient’s record not to revive a patient who develops a cardiopulmonary arrest. |
| Double effect | A doctrine originating in Roman Catholic theology that holds that an evil effect is morally acceptable provided a proportional good effect will accrue, so long as the evil is not intended. |
| Durable power of attorney for health care | An advance directive that goes into effect in the event that a patient who has completed such a document loses decisional capacity. Allows an individual to name a person (s) who is empowered to make health care decisions when the individual becomes incapacitated. |
