DDBA 8562 Week 5 Duty to Protect Analysis Example

Course	DDBA 8562 Seminar in Law and Ethics in Healthcare Management
Week	Week 5
Paper type	Privacy analysis
Length	About 620 words, 4 pages
Format	Memo, APA 7 citations
School	Walden University
Program	Doctor of Business Administration (DBA)
Updated	October 2026

Free sample paper for DDBA 8562 Week 5

Memorandum

To: Director, outpatient behavioral health services

From: Compliance and risk management analyst

Date: April 16, 2026

Re: Whether to disclose a patient's threat against a coworker

Facts

During a session at a composite outpatient behavioral health clinic, a patient told his therapist that he was "going to make the new shift supervisor pay" for reporting him and that he "knew where she parks." He works at a distribution center with several shift supervisors; one was hired two weeks ago. He has no history of violence on record, but he described owning a handgun. The therapist asks whether the clinic may, or must, tell anyone.

What this page is doingThe memo records the patient's words as the scenario gives them, since the statutory threshold is applied to those words.

The Federal Floor

The federal privacy rule permits, but does not require, a covered entity to release a patient's information if it judges in good faith that doing so could avert grave and impending harm to a person or the public, provided the recipient is in a position to reduce that danger, which can include the person threatened (Uses and disclosures for which an authorization or opportunity to agree or object is not required, 45 C.F.R. § 164.512). The rule is a floor. It removes a federal barrier to warning but creates no duty to warn, and it does not override a state law that is more protective of privacy except where the state law itself allows the disclosure.

The Duty to Protect

In its 1976 Tarasoff ruling, California's highest court decided that a clinician who learns, or professionally ought to learn, that a patient means to seriously hurt a specific person cannot shelter behind confidentiality and must take reasonable protective steps for that person (Tarasoff v. Regents of the University of California, 1976). Most states have since adopted some version of a duty or permission to protect, by statute or case law, with wide variation in thresholds and in what discharges the duty. Johnson et al. (2019) documented that variation and noted that many clinicians misunderstand their own state's rule. The composite state's statute imposes a duty once a patient voices a serious threat of physical harm aimed at someone who can reasonably be identified, and it is discharged by reasonable efforts to warn the victim and notify law enforcement.

The patient's words meet the "serious threat" element: a stated intent to make someone "pay," knowledge of where she parks and access to a firearm. Whether the victim is "reasonably identifiable" is the close question. He named a role, not a person, but "the new shift supervisor" at his workplace refers to one person hired two weeks ago and identifiable through his employer.

What this page is doingBoth state obligations are sourced and applied to the patient's recorded words, so neither is treated as a mere exception to the other.

The Confidentiality Duty

The state's mental health records law makes communications in treatment confidential and permits disclosure without consent only in listed circumstances, which include disclosures required by the duty-to-protect statute. Confidentiality is not a mere presumption here: it protects the therapeutic relationship on which this patient's treatment, and the safety it may produce, depends. A disclosure outside the statute's terms would breach it.

The Choice

I recommend that the therapist treat the statutory duty as triggered and make reasonable efforts to warn, through the employer to identify the supervisor and directly to her, and notify police. The victim is identifiable with modest effort, the threat is specific, and the federal rule permits the disclosure. Confidentiality yields only to the extent the statute requires: disclose the threat and the information needed to act on it, not the patient's diagnosis or treatment history.

Risks

If a court later found the victim not reasonably identifiable, the disclosure would fall outside the statute and could breach the records law. Documenting the reasoning now is the clinic's best protection.

References

Johnson, R., Persad, G., & Sisti, D. (2019). The Tarasoff rule: The implications of interstate variation and gaps in professional training. Focus, 17(4), 435-442. https://doi.org/10.1176/appi.focus.17402

Tarasoff v. Regents of the University of California, 17 Cal. 3d 425, 551 P.2d 334 (1976).

Uses and disclosures for which an authorization or opportunity to agree or object is not required, 45 C.F.R. § 164.512 (2023).

DDBA 8562 Week 5 instructions, in plain terms

Week 5 asks for an analytical memo on a disclosure decision involving two state obligations and a federal floor. Record the patient's words as the scenario gives them. Establish the federal rule accurately as a permission, not a requirement or prohibition. Present the duty to protect and the duty of confidentiality in parallel, each sourced and applied to the recorded words, without treating either as a mere exception to the other. Analyze the statutory threshold carefully where the facts sit near its edge. Choose, limit the disclosure to what the obligation requires and state the risk if a court read the threshold differently. Four to five pages in memo form is typical, with facts kept separate from analysis.

How the DDBA 8562 Week 5 example is put together

The sample's facts quote the patient's statements and note that one supervisor was hired two weeks earlier. The federal section explains that the rule removes a barrier to warning but creates no duty and does not override more protective state law. The duty section traces the California holding and the variation among states, then applies the composite statute's elements: a serious threat and a reasonably identifiable victim. The confidentiality section explains why confidentiality protects the treatment on which safety may depend. The choice is to treat the duty as triggered, warn through the employer and directly and notify police, disclosing only the threat. The risk section urges documenting the reasoning. The risk section notes the clinic's exposure if a court found the victim not identifiable.

Reading the DDBA 8562 Week 5 rubric

Precision about the kind of authority involved carries the first portion; describing the federal rule as requiring a warning, or forbidding one, misstates the floor on which everything rests. The largest share follows parallel treatment of the two state obligations: both sourced, both applied to the patient's recorded words and neither treated as a presumption the other merely rebuts. Threshold analysis earns a distinct allocation, and the scenario sits near the statutory edge to reward caution over confidence. A disclosure limited to what the obligation requires shows respect for confidentiality even when it yields. Honest risk discussion completes the memo. Disclosing only what the obligation requires, rather than the full record, is credited as respect for confidentiality.

DDBA 8562 Week 5 help from the desk

Quote the patient's words exactly and keep them in front of you. Read the federal provision and note its verbs: permits, not requires. Find your state's duty-to-protect rule and list its elements; apply each to the words. Then read the state's mental health confidentiality law and find the exceptions it allows. Ask whether the victim is identifiable with reasonable effort. Decide, and limit what is disclosed. Write down your reasoning, since documentation is the clinician's best protection whichever way the decision goes. If your own state's rule differs from the composite one, say how the outcome might change.

Get a DDBA 8562 Week 5 example written to your instructions

Include the Week 5 scenario with the prompt, the rubric and the state whose law the section assumes, if one is named; the analysis is written to those facts and returned in 24 to 48 hours, the first at no cost. A classroom that supplies the patient's statement word for word gets an analysis reading those exact words against the threshold.

More DDBA 8562 papers and DBA samples

DDBA 8562 Week 5 questions, answered

Where can I find a free DDBA 8562 Week 5 sample paper?

Readers can study the whole threat disclosure memo here, at no cost.

What does the federal privacy rule do in the DDBA 8562 Week 5 memo?

It permits disclosure to avert a serious and imminent threat but does not require it.

Which state obligations conflict?

A duty to protect an identifiable victim and confidentiality under the state's mental health records law.

Is a victim named only by job title identifiable?

Here yes, since only one new shift supervisor was hired two weeks earlier at his workplace.

What should be disclosed?

The threat and what is needed to act on it, not the patient's diagnosis or treatment history.