Health Care Law is a rapidly growing field of study, and one which has become increasingly important in the Canadian health system. Health law is a field that touches most of our lives. Health and human service professionals are frequently faced with legal concerns, whether working in hospital settings or community-based care facilities. This course provides an understanding of the Canadian legal system relevant to clinical practice, administration, and policy making.
Knowing the building blocks of legal analysis is essential to one’s understanding of the relevance and implications of law in the context of health care; therefore, these form the basis for the course. This course highlights key contemporary issues in health law, with an emphasis on case study learning. The case studies are designed to teach you to think like a lawyer as you work through problems that have legal implications. The learning process begins with sources of law, moving to issue identification, then to legal analysis, and finally, to the application of law to facts.
It is important to keep in mind that while HADM 400 contains important general information about health law and offers guidelines for application to specific situations, it should not be used to replace professional advice in situations warranting a lawyer.
Outline
Module 1: Organization of the Canadian Health Care System
Unit 1 The Framework for Canadian Health Law
Unit 2 The Canadian Health Care System and Aboriginal Health Governance
Unit 3 Right to Health Care
Unit 4 Health Law and Health Professional Regulation
Module 2: Health Practice
Unit 5 Medical Negligence
Unit 6 General Principles of the Law of Consent
Unit 7 Specific Problems in the Law of Consent
Unit 8: End-of-life Law and Policy
Module 3: Body, Technology, and the Law
Unit 9 Reproductive Decision-making
Unit 10 Body, Research, and Emerging Health Technologies
Unit 11 Privacy Rights and Access to Information
Evaluation
To receive credit for HADM 400, you must complete all assessments, achieve a course composite grade of at least D (50 percent) and a grade of at least 50 percent on the Final Examination. The weighting of the composite grade is as follows:
Activity
Weight
Assignment 1
20%
Assignment 2
20%
Podcasts
5%
Assignment 3
20%
Final Exam
35%
Total
100%
The final examination for this course must be requested in advance and written under the supervision of an AU-approved exam invigilator. Invigilators include either ProctorU or an approved in-person invigilation centre that can accommodate online exams. Students are responsible for payment of any invigilation fees. Information on exam request deadlines, invigilators, and other exam-related questions, can be found at the Exams and grades section of the Calendar.
To learn more about assignments and examinations, please refer to Athabasca University’s online Calendar.
Materials
Erdman, J., Vanessa G., & Nelson, E. (Eds.). (2017). Canadian health law and policy (5th ed.). Toronto, ON: LexisNexis Canada. (Print)
Note: Students with disabilities can be provided a password protected, non-sharable pdf file to access the textbook on line
Other Materials
Each unit may have additional materials assigned, such as journal articles, legal cases, policy reports, videos, and podcasts which will be accessed online.
Athabasca University reserves the right to amend course outlines occasionally and without notice. Courses offered by other delivery methods may vary from their individualized study counterparts.