Chapter 2 HIT 2050

Assignment
Case Study: Ethical Aspects of Administrative Decision-Making

For this assignment read the case study scenario and answer the questions (Questions for Analysis) on a Word document. Submit your work on the submission link.

Donna Veritas, Assistant Director of Health Information Management (HIM) at St. Andrew’s MetroCare Hospital, was asked to attend a department chair’s meeting in place of her boss, Sam Murky. In response to her asking how she should prepare for the meeting, Murky warned her that she might be asked about the late budget requests from their department. He advised Donna that, if questioned about this, she should suggest that a chronic software problem compounded by excessive absence on the part of a senior member of the staff led to a medical record processing backlog that had further delayed the completion of their budget package. Donna was unaware of any software problem but was quite aware that one of her recently hired coding staff had been on short-term leave for the past 2 weeks for hospitalization for an acute illness. The medical record processing backlog, however, had been a chronic problem for the past 2 years, in part because of higher-than-anticipated turnover among coders and clerks in the department.

As the first agenda item, the vice president for fiscal and support services, Rhonda Requisite, announced that, as indicated in an earlier e-mail to all department heads, each manager would be expected to make a short presentation on his or her unit’s budget proposal. The head of radiology, who was asked to begin the process, made a polished presentation with the use of PowerPoint slides. After some tough questions about his budget assumptions, Rhonda turned to Donna and asked her to make the presentation for the HIM department.

Questions for Analysis

1. How should Donna respond in this situation?

2. What, if any, ethical issues are relevant to her decision?

3. What actions should Donna take after the department head meeting?

4. Who is affected ethically by her response to this situation?

5. Who has primary responsibility for ensuring that ethical considerations are given due consideration both within the department and within the St. Andrew’s Hospital as a whole?