Organizational Ethics in Healthcare

Why is the concept of organizational ethics important to healthcare organizations?

Ethical values are the universal rules on how persons ought to conduct themselves and which provide a basis for the identification of the kinds of motives, intentions, and actions that are valued (Ostman et al., 2019). Ethics can also be defined as the moral principles that act as a guide on how a group of persons or individuals should conduct themselves or behave. The focus of ethics is on the wrong and right actions and also includes the process of making decisions to determine the ultimate consequence of choosing the action to take (Trobed et al., 2015). Ethics play an important role in healthcare because staff members have to recognize the dilemmas in healthcare and make good decisions and judgments based on values while simultaneously abiding by the laws that govern them. This allows healthcare workers to practice with integrity and competence (Epstein &Turner, 2015).

Who should set them?

National and international organizations set guidelines and codes of ethics by which healthcare professionals should abide. For example, the American Nurses Association has a code of ethics and guidelines by which nurses should abide. The International Council of Nurses also has a code of ethics by which members should abide. At a more local level, an organization should have its own organizational ethics, which all staff should be aware of and follow.

What’s your experience with organizational ethics?

At the organization where I work, there are several ethical standards that I and most staff follow. For example, one of the ethics sets is not sharing patient information and maintaining patient confidentiality. Discussing patients with unauthorized third parties or posting information about patients on social media is a breach of confidentiality that attracts hefty discipline on any staff.

References

Epstein, B., & Turner, M. (2015). The nursing code of ethics: Its value, its history. OJIN: The Online Journal of Issues in Nursing, 20(2), 1-10.

Östman, L., Näsman, Y., Eriksson, K., & Nyström, L. (2019). Ethos: The heart of ethics and health. Nursing ethics, 26(1), 26-36.

Trobec, I., & Starcic, A. I. (2015). Developing nursing ethical competences online versus in the traditional classroom. Nursing ethics, 22(3), 352-366.