Managing Healthcare Ethically, Third Edition, Volume 2: Organizational Concerns

Healthcare systems tailor their structure and policies to create an ethically aligned organization. The best organizational practices and cultures are built on strong and consistent ethical decision-making that ensures quality and value-based patient care.

 

Managing Healthcare Ethically: Organizational Concerns focuses on how a healthcare organization’s ethical decisions and actions affect its operations and overall mission. The book establishes the need for clear policies and guidelines that foster and sustain an ethically grounded organization.

 

Gathering columns originally published in American College of Healthcare Executives publications, in particular Healthcare Executive magazine, this volume provides strategies for governing boards, committees, and individual leaders to define and improve their organization’s ethical standards of practice.

 

Topics covered include:

 

Dealing with physician and staff shortages Making ethical resource-allocation decisions Rethinking traditional ethics committees Taking an ethical approach to advertising Comparing ethics and compliance programs

 

Discussion questions at the end of each column facilitate conversation among colleagues or students, and an extensive bibliography of books and articles provides suggestions for further reading.

 

This book’s practical guidance on how organizations can address ethical concerns aligns with the lessons shared in its two companion volumes. Managing Healthcare Ethically: Leadership Roles and Responsibilities looks at the unique ethical dilemmas healthcare leaders face, while Managing Healthcare Ethically: Clinical Challenges explores the ethics inherent in providing patient care. Together, these three volumes illustrate how ethical reasoning and professionalism can greatly enhance a healthcare organization’s performance and success.

William A. Nelson, PhD, MDiv, HFACHE, is director of the Ethics and Human Values Program and a professor in the Dartmouth Institute for Health Policy and Clinical Practice, the Department of Medical Education, and the Department of Community and Family Medicine at Dartmouth’s Geisel School of Medicine. He serves as the director of multiple courses for Dartmouth’s three master of public health programs and medical school, focusing on healthcare ethics. He also is an adjunct professor at New York University’s Robert F. Wagner Graduate School of Public Service. He was the principal investigator of several federally and state-funded research studies fostering an evidence-based approach to ethics. Dr. Nelson has received many awards, including the US Congressional Excalibur Award for Public Service and an honorary doctorate of humane letters from his alma mater, Elmhurst College. The US Department of Veterans Affairs established the annual competitive William A. Nelson Award for Excellence in Health Care Ethics.

Paul B. Hofmann, DrPH, LFACHE, is president of the Hofmann Healthcare Group in Moraga, California. Although he devotes a majority of his time to pro bono activities, he continues to write, speak, and consult on ethical issues in healthcare and to serve as an advisor to healthcare companies and as an expert witness. Dr. Hofmann has served as executive director of Emory University Hospital and director of Stanford University Hospital and Clinics. For 19 years, he coordinated the annual two-day ethics seminar for the American College of Healthcare Executives. He is coeditor of Management Mistakes in Healthcare: Identification, Correction and Prevention, published in 2005 by Cambridge University Press. He serves on the American Hospital Association’s Quest for Quality Prize committee, the Joint Commission’s international Standards Advisory Panel, and the board of trustees of the Education Development Center. He is a cofounder of Operation Access and the Alliance for Global Clinical Training.