An Introduction to Healthcare Organizational Ethics

By: Robert T. Hall

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Synopsis: This is a lucid, readable discussion of ethical questions in health care as they arise on the business or organizational level: an effort to spell out an ethical perspective for healthcare organizations. It will be of use to students in health services management programs, health care professionals, healthcare administrators, and members of healthcare ethics committees. Hall begins with the ethical analysis of decision-making in the management of healthcare organizations and then addresses some of the questions of organizational ethics through an analysis of corporate social responsibility in for-profit and not-for-profit organizations and of the problem of uncompensated care. Later chapters take up patient development, community relations, diversity, employee relations, governmental relations, regulatory compliance and medical records. The author's analysis focuses on healthcare institutions as business organizations with many of the problems faced by corporate management in other fields but with the difference that health care holds a special place among human needs and has traditionally been viewed from an altruistic perspective. He gives special attention to the new standards on organizational ethics promulgated by the Joint Commission on Accreditation of Healthcare Organizations and includes many case studies not only to illustrate the main points but also to direct the reader's attention to peripheral aspects that can complicate theses issues.