Corporate governance and ethical responsibility in healthcare management

Corporate governance has attracted attention of a number of people due to its emerging importance for a proper economic development of corporations and the society in general. According to Trevino, Weaver and Toffler (1999) what has been seen as a practice within the corporation in the last two decades showed a sad tale of corporate ethics. In a number of times corporation managers or the CEO usually work together with stakeholders to protect each other interest in the corporation, a practice which has made a lot of investors to pull out their investments from such corporation.

However, corporate governance can be defined as a method in which the corporations are usually being directed and controlled. Its framework highlights how the rights and duties are distributed equally among various participants in the corporation, such as managers of the company, the board members, shareholders and it also highlights ways and procedures which are used in corporation during the decision making process about the affairs of the corporation. The corporate governance also offers a clear structure which the firm's objectives are put in place and the methods of achieving the set objectives and ways of monitoring performance (Trevino, Weaver and Toffler, 1999).

This paper however, discusses the at least three (3) different internal and external stakeholders that Dr. DoRight might have to deal with on a daily basis at the hospital after taking over the leadership of the hospital. Secondly, the paper compares and contrasts potential conflicts of interest that may exist between the internal and external stakeholders of the hospital during the tenure of Dr. DoRight. It also discusses whether Dr. DoRight has fulfilled his ethical duty by reporting the illegal procedures. Again, the study describes the deontology principle and applies it to the ethical dilemma that Dr. DoRight faces in this case. Finally, the paper describes the utilitarianism principle and applies it to the ethical dilemma Dr. Do Right faces in this case.

The internal and external stakeholders that Dr. DoRight has to deal with;

Dr. DoRight faced a number of internal and external stakeholders during his initial tenure as the CEO of the Universal hospital. According to Dandino (2004), internal stakeholders whom Dr. DoRight had to deal with are the managers, employees, trustees and the patients, while external stakeholders whom Dr. DoRight dealt with throughout his entire period at the hospital were the public, the future patients, the investors and the families of the current patients who are undergoing treatment at the hospital.

According to Sethuraman (2006), internal stakeholders comprises of a team of people who work only within the set up of the organization. However, the internal stakeholders according to Sethuraman (2006) that Dr. DoRight has to deal with during his tenure at the Universal Hospital are employee, board of governance or trustees and regional directors of compliance. External stakeholders are listed as clients which in case are the patients, corporations and community organization. The other internal and external stakeholders are indicated below;

Comparing and contrasting the potential conflicts of interest that may exist between the organization's internal and external stakeholders

Conflict of interest normally occurs within companies and it ca affects both internal and external stakeholders (Verschoor,2007).Some of these are;

1. Corporate Fraud

This type of conflict of interest occurs when a give corporation deceives someone or the general public in order to gain some kind of advantage to which it is never entitled. This affects the internal and external stakeholders but affect the external ones mostly.

2. Health Care Fraud

This type of fraud takes place when people or corporations steal money or/and services which is never availed to the people who need it.

3. Billing for services that are never rendered

4. Kickbacks

Discussion of whether Dr. DoRight has fulfilled his ethical duty by effectively reporting the illegal procedures.

There are several basic ethical concepts within the healthcare system that are specially designed to make the saving of life as well as promotion of good health a priority. These same ethical concepts are used in refraining members of the healthcare fraternity from engaging in illegal and immoral practices while also making it possible for the illegal actions by others to be reported to the appropriate authority. It is therefore the responsibility of the hospital staff to ensure that they maintain a competency level which is consistent with the and ethical guidelines their profession. Dr. DoRight effectively fulfilled his ethical dueties by effectively intiating an investigation and then reporting the incidents of unethical behavior to the right authority (Regional Director Compliance Manager and Executive Committee) even though the authority failed to act on his findings (Halbert & Ingulli, 2012).

From a critical view of things, we can also say that Dr. DoRight failed in his ethical duties by waiting for a very long period of time (2 years) before forwarding his findings. He should have been active aggressive and not passive aggressive since in that period a lot of innocent lives were lost.