Category: L

Any association of health care executives in a local area, either formal or informal, designed to provide networking opportunities. A variety of such groups exist under many names, the earliest perhaps being “young administrators’ groups.”  

Companion software to grateful med which allows the full text of medical literature indexed in medline and other National Library of Medicine (NLM) biomedical databases to be obtained.  

A hospital room where a mother can assume care of her newborn infant under the supervision of the hospital’s nursing personnel. This term may also apply to relatives or others assisting in the care of a chronically ill or other type of patient.  

Written words which injure the reputation of another; written defamation. Oral defamation is called “slander.” Defaming the character of another by means of the written word. To qualify legally as libel, written communication must intentionally impugn the reputation of another person and be both malicious and demonstrably false.  

A 1986 legal case involving the death in 1984 of an 18-year old woman, Libby Zion, in New York. The woman died a few hours after admission to a hospital from its emergency department. Ms. Zion’s father claimed that her care had been inadequate, and a grand jury investigation later followed. While the grand jury…

In finance, an obligation to pay. Liabilities are shown on an institution’s balance sheet under such headings as “accounts payable” (money owed to vendors and others), “accrued salaries” (when a statement is drawn before checks have been issued for a given pay period), and the like.  

Responsibility to do something, pay something, or refrain from doing something. Liability is used to refer to a legal obligation, often one which must be enforced by a lawsuit.  

A predetermined period of time during a hospital stay when the patient is permitted to be away from the hospital, with the understanding that the patient will return at the end of the period. An LOA may be for a few hours, a day, or several days. A leave is granted by the attending physician…

A legal defense used by manufacturers of drugs and medical devices which grants them immunity from strict products liability for design defects or “failure to warn” if they properly warned the physician who prescribed the treatment or medical intervention. The physician is considered the “learned intermediary”. The manufacturer’s duty to warn the patient is relieved…

Hospital suites in which a maternity patient stays from the time of admission, through labor and recovery from delivery. The postpartum portion of the hospital stay is provided in other quarters. In some hospitals LDRSs are being replaced by labor-delivery-recovery-postpartum suites (LDRPSs) in which the entire stay (except for such procedures as caesarean sections) is…