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Critical Issues In Health Law: A National Summit

Presented by the National Health Law Section and the Continuing Legal Education Committee of the Canadian Bar Association
 

May 21-22, 2009
Morris J. Wosk Centre for Dialogue, Simon Fraser University and the Delta Hotel Vancouver, BC

Details

Don’t miss out on the second biennial “Critical Issues in Health Law: A National Summit,” designed to bring together health law practitioners from across Canada for an update on a variety of critical health law issues. This exciting program will concentrate on the following topics of national importance and relevance to health law practitioners, legal academics, and government lawyers:

Electronic Health Records and Privacy Issues: Canadian (and global) consumers are openly sharing intimate, personal health information in ways that were unimaginable just two years ago. This trend will grow dramatically, no matter what privacy legislation says, or how it gets interpreted by lawyers. Consumers – especially those touched by chronic illness – are leading a health 2.0 revolution that is unstoppable and offers enormous benefits to health-care decision making. As this revolution continues, new “brands of trust” are emerging organically for personal health records and for interactive “social networking” health sites. In light of these realities, the Canadian legal community needs to consider how privacy laws can be in the service of innovation and consumer empowerment.

Medical Malpractice Litigation: This session will examine two topics of importance to civil litigators and academics with an interest in tort law:

o Duty of Care: Should a child born with birth defects be entitled to successfully assert a negligence claim against a doctor or other health-care provider for harm suffered before birth? Leading counsel from both the plaintiff and defence bar, along with a well-known health law academic, will explore the duty of care analysis as applied to a so-called wrongful life claim.

o Causation and Damages: If two wrongdoers have caused one indivisible injury, will their responsibility for damages be apportioned, and if so, how? Some of the foremost authorities in tort law will clarify and explain the oft-confused relationship between (1) causation of injury, (2) apportionment of fault among concurrent or successive wrongdoers, and (3) causation and apportionment of damages.

Medical Ethics: End of life decision-making occurs every day in our health care system. In many cases, consensus is reached between the individual and those speaking on his or her behalf, and the health care team entrusted with providing competent and compassionate care. Where agreement is not reached, a host of ethical and legal issues arise for all involved, and for those advising them. A number of these cases have received national media attention, and have been heard by courts across the country, often resulting in conflicting decisions. This panel will provide attendees with the latest word on case law, legislation, policy and practical approaches for lawyers involved in such cases.

Changes in the Scope and Practices of Health Care: The increase of competition in health care and recent changes in the scope of practice of various health care professionals have had a tremendous impact on the regulation of health care in a variety of ways:

The Competition Bureau has made health care an investigative priority and has undertaken several studies of various professions in the medical sector and is advocating for the inclusion of competitive principles into health care legislation - an area of the law which has traditionally fallen within the jurisdiction of the Provinces.

Health care, and particularly complimentary medicine, is increasingly being treated as a consumer product, impacting how health care is marketed, provided and even sold, and raising ethical considerations in the process.

While physicians have traditionally had no limitations placed on the scope of their practice, there has been an expansion in the number of professionals that have been authorized to provide health care, and an increase in the scope of care that these professionals may provide, raising questions about who is a health care professional and what is the scope of services that they may provide.

The advent of shared care and collaborative practice has impacted all health professionals and physicians in particular, raising issues about the legal liability they may face in this environment.

For information, please contact Sheila Mills at the CBA National Office, 613-237-2925; 1-800-267-8860 ext. 107, or by e-mail at sheilam@cba.org.

Thank you to our sponsors: