 | Barry Furrow Professor of Law - Drexel Univ. School of Law Law |
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01.07.2016-29.07.2016
CHOOSING WISELY: Consumer Sovereignty in Health Care
This research project will examine the merits of consumer sovereignty in health care, acknowledging its roots in (1) consumer shopping and (2) U.S. health law developments that foster patient autonomy by moving patients toward a partnership status in medical decision making. The legal concept of patient informed consent in medicine is migrating toward a shared decision-making model; Food and Drug Law policy now gives patients much more information about drug risks and benefits than in the past; the new Affordable Care Act is built on a pillar of transparency, accessible quality information about providers, and tools such as Decision Aids to foster patient awareness. The problem is that consumer sovereignty in health care is double-edged, giving consumers informational power while also shifting risks to patients to process complex information in the face of medical and cost uncertainty. I will consider the downside of consumer sovereignty as well as its autonomy-maximizing benefits. -
03.05.2011-28.07.2011
Hospitals as System Fiduciaries: Health Care Reform and the Model of Stewardship
Barry Furrow is a Professor of Law and Director of the Health Law Program at the Earle Mack School of Law at Drexel University in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, USA. He is the lead author of a legal casebook, Health Law: Cases, Materials and Problems, now in its 6th edition, which has become a standard in U.S. law schools. He has also written on informed consent law, AIDS and legal issues, and the regulation of scientific risks. Barry’s current research at the Brocher Foundation focuses on patient safety in health care settings such as hospitals. He is working on an article, the fourth in a series, on the legal, regulatory, and ethical parameters of patient safety, particularly on the duties owned by providers to patients. His current work looks at the norms of fiduciary responsibility, and how expanded hospital fiduciary values might help to improve patient safety and reduce the number of medical adverse events that occur in hospitals every year. As part of this work, he is analyzing the Affordable Care Act, the new health reform legislation enacted in the United States in 2010, in order to understand how its mandates may expand provider fiduciary responsibilities.
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