Mindblown: a blog about philosophy.

Termination of employment of an individual “employed at will” (an employee without a personal or union contract) when the discharge was against public policy, violated an implied contract, or was not carried out in “good faith and fair dealing.” For example, firing an employee who reasonably refuses to do something dangerous may be against public…

A type of lawsuit concerning a baby who would not have been born but for the existence of professional negligence. A wrongful birth action is brought by the parents on their own behalf, as opposed to a wrongful life action, which is brought by or on behalf of the child. Wrongful birth cases, which involve…

A term used by the Joint Commission on Accreditation of Healthcare Organizations (JCAHO) for the documentation it requires of a facility which is attempting to “clear” a Type I recommendation. JCAHO gives general directions for organization of the WPR.  

A name trademarked by Curran Care for an approach to developing health care delivery services around each patient’s care needs from preadmission, through acute and post-acute care, and home health care.  

A distributed hypertext information system usually associated with the Internet (the Net). The World Wide Web (frequently referred to as “the Web”), is really the first application to run on the Internet which makes the Net’s vast amount of information available to the masses. Prior to the Web, information on the Net was primarily accessed…

From “coming out of the woodwork,” used in health care to mean the appearance of previously unidentified problems (unmet needs) when programs for them are announced. For example, when Medicare was initiated in the mid-sixties, an unexpected number of cataract and hernia operations were performed; people who had previously lived with these problems had them…

An area of a building so designated because it often has standing water or because the floor is regularly drenched to a greater degree than with ordinary floor cleaning.  

The first major United States Supreme Court abortion decision since Roe v. Wade. While Webster neither reexamined nor expressly over-ruled Roe V. Wade, the Court’s opinion was divided (this means that the Justices did not all agree with one another), and showed a willingness to reexamine Roe v. Wade in an appropriate case. It is…