Ethical

The health care industry has a code ethics in which they use as guide when faced with unethical dilemmas. Health care professionals are faced with numerous ethical dilemmas than any other profession. The main strategy is to improve the quality in health care by setting standards. The standards provide health care organizations with a framework to evaluate their health promotion practice and to stimulate development. This will provide an opportunity for staff to question what they do, why they do it, and whether it can be done better. Performance indicators and standards helps with quantitative monitoring of quality improvement over time. To support the assessment of standards and indicators, a self-assessment tool was developed by the American College of Healthcare Executives. The American College of Healthcare Executives (ACHE) is an international professional society of more than 30,000 who leads hospitals, health care systems, and other health care organizations (American College of Healthcare Executives, n.d.). The organization is known for their educational programs including the annual Congress on Healthcare leadership (American Healthcare Executives, n.d.). In addition, the ACHE is dedicated to improving health care delivery, which is imperative integrating ethics into the health care organization. Influence of Individual Ethics on Decision Making The American College of Healthcare Executives (ACHE) has an ethics self-assessment, which consist of thought-provoking questions and useful for his or her reflection on applying the ACHE Code of Ethics to an individual everyday activities (American College of Healthcare Executives, n.d.). Self- assessments is a process in which all health care professionals in an organization use to carry out their own quality evaluation against a set of standards (Grone, Jorgenson, & Garcia, Barbero, 2004). Any question answered in the ethical self-assessment may raise an ethical red flag. The ethical self-assessment is not a scoring mechanism; therefore individuals have different opinions and views, which cannot be scored numerically. Additionally, this self- assessment helps medical professionals and health care organizations with continuous quality improvement, the development of action plan, identification of quality improvement, implementation, and evaluation. A health care organization makes decisions when dealing with patients, and this concept is known as procedural justice. The application describes to organizations that they need to depend on an intentional process to promote fairness through a clear understanding of all competing values in response to a particular ethical conflict (Nelson, 2009). In order for a health care organization to be successful decision makers should incorporate staff member’s perception as well as values, which will decrease ethical dilemmas. In addition, a health care organization mission and vision statements plays a major role with decision making. Eight Steps for decision making Ethical decision-making should be a collaborative process between patients, physicians, nurses, and other medical staff. Below are the eight steps to assist an individual through an ethical dilemma. The first step is to identify the problem or dilemma. An individual should acknowledge that a problem does exist or agree that this is an ethical, legal, and professional problem. The second step is to identify the potential issues involved. During this step it evaluates the rights, responsibilities, and welfare of those involved as well as affected by the decision (Corey, Corey, & Haynes, 1998). The third step is to review the relevant ethical codes, which provides a great amount of facts and discoveries about the specific problem under review by consulting with the professional codes. The fourth step is to know the applicable laws and regulations in which require the individual to examine the state and federal laws that apply to the ethical dilemma (Corey et al., 1998 ). In the fifth step it is important for an individual to know where to go to obtain consultation with professional knowledge about ethical issues. The individuals included with the decision making process needs to ensure that he or she have systematically and quantitatively evaluated each decision, which is considered to be the sixth step (Corey et al., 1998). The seventh step is for the individual enumerate the consequences of various decisions by finding the best way to evaluate the potential consequences of each course of action, before implementing a particular action plan. Additionally, an individual can determine what ethical principles he or she can use as a framework for evaluating the consequences of a given course of action. The final step is to decide on what appears to be the best course of action. Once the course of action has been implemented, the individual should find ways to evaluate the course of action. The steps taken may not always follow the same order shown and steps may be repeated several times in the process (Corey et al., 1998). Self Analysis of Ethics Self-Assessment Many lessons can be learned from the ethics self-assessment in which can show an individual weak and strong area. The first lesson learned from the ethics self-assessment is that the individual will need to improve in certain areas when answering ethical questions. In the health care industry many health care professionals are faced with numerous situations and believe that he or she is being ethical, but when he or she takes the assessment it shows where they made some decisions that were unethical. Some health care decisions are influenced by an individual ethics in which the gap needs to be closed. The second lesson learned is to identify the gaps and use of the code of ethics, which will help him her make necessary steps to improving methods as well as decisions made. The decisions made by individuals can have a negative affect on the quality of care of given to patient in which can decrease patient revenue. Every health care organization should have a tool to compare their organization level of ethics to the code of ethics in health care. Additionally, the organization should pay attention to outside influences because it would help physicians and other medical staff make ethical decisions as well as provide consistency throughout the organization with team members. American College of Healthcare Executives Ethics Toolkit provides tools for developing both parts of an ethical culture (American College of Healthcare Executives, n.d.). Conclusion Hospitals and other medical facilities are encouraged to use the self-assessment to improve the health promotion activities and to contribute to continuous quality improvement. The self-assessment tool includes a measurable elements and evidence to assess the compliance with standards. The organization needs to establish a multidisciplinary group that will represent staff at all levels. This group will need resources for tasks of collecting data and evidence and for training the group. Additionally, it is suggested to have the following staff involved in the multidisciplinary group: senior nurse, senior manager, senior doctor, human resources, and staff from non-clinical services. Staff at all levels within the organization is required to collect data and evidence for supporting the compliance of the standards as well as improving quality of care. Once the tool is analyzed, it will assist the organization with handling ethical dilemmas and help individuals understand his or her role within the organization as well as the process. References American College of Healthcare Executives. (n.d.). About ACHE. Retrieved on June 9, 2011 from http://www/ache/org/newclub/career/ethself.cfm Corey, G., Corey, M., & Haynes, R. (1998). Student workbook for Ethics in Action. Pacific Grove, CA:Brooks/Cole. Retrieved on June 8,2011 from http://psyc.csustan.edu/kbaker/3790/ethical%20decision%20making%20(Corey%20et%20al).pdf. Grone, O., Jorgenson, S. V., & Garcia-Barbero, M. (2004). Standards for Health Promotion in Hospitals. World Health Organization. Retrieved on June 10, 2011 from http://www.euro.who.int/__data/assets/pdf_file/0005/.../E85054.pdf Nelson, W.A. (2009). An organizational ethics decision-making process. Healthcare Executive, 20(4), 8-14.