Ethical Issues in Health

Ethical Issues in Resources The ethical issues in developing resources involve health personnel, facilities, drugs and equipment, and knowledge

Ethical Issues in Resource Development Personnel must be diverse enough to permit the consumer some choice of providers. Racial and ethnic diversity in both the training and practice of health professionals are emphasized.

Resources Continued For facilities, the need for equitable access to quality institutions and for fair distribution of health facilities takes priority over individual personal or commercial interests. The financial crisis facing public hospitals throughout the nation poses an ethical problem of major proportions.

Resources Continued With respect to knowledge, public health ethics focuses on the importance of research in assessing health system performance, including equity of access and medical outcomes. The equity principles that should govern biomedical research involving human subjects are a high priority as well.

Economic Support The ethical principle of justice makes it imperative that everyone in the population have equitable access to health services with dignity.

Economic Support Continued Income inequality, together with limited access to health care, has serious consequences for the poor. The 1983 President’s Commission for the Study of Ethical Problems in Medicine and Biomedical Research made a strong recommendation that society has an obligation to ensure equitable access to health care for all citizens

Organization of Services Services should be organized and distributed in accordance with health needs and the ability to benefit the population. In order to be fair and just, a health system must minimize geographic inequity in distributing care and must be culturally relevant to the populations it is designed to serve.

Managed Care & Ethics The development of various forms of managed care raises another set of ethical questions Conflicting goals of cost-containment and assurance of access to a full range of high quality services

Managed Care & Ethics The question of who decides what is medically necessary The question of whether individual patients can sue managed care plans and under what circumstances The ethical dilemma between patient’s interests and profits

Ethical Issues in Management of Services Health administration has ethical consequences that may be overlooked because they appear ethically neutral: organization, staffing, budgeting, supervision, consultation, procurement, logistics, records and reporting, coordination, and evaluation.

Ethical Issues in Management Management of health services involves issues of allocating scarce resources, evaluating scientific evidence, measuring quality of life, and imposing mandates by legislation and regulations.

Mechanisms of resolving ethical issues Ombudsmen Institutional review boards Ethics committees Standards set by professional associations Practice guidelines Financing mechanisms Courts of law