Leonard J. Weber
Healthcare ethics is not just about decisions made at the bedside. It is
also about decisions made in executive offices and in boardrooms. Business Ethics in
Healthcare offers perspectives that can assist healthcare managers achieve the
highest ethical standards as they face their roles as healthcare providers,
employers, and community service organizations. Weber suggests guidelines and
criteria based on the understanding that the healthcare organization is committed to
patients' rights, to careful stewardship of resources, to just working conditions
for employees, and to service to the community.
As Weber shows,
addressing business ethics issues in a healthcare organization starts with complying
with relevant laws and regulations. As a provider of high quality patient care with
limited resources, it needs to be able to distinguish between the right way and the
wrong way of taking cost into consideration when making decisions about patient care
practices. As employer, the organization needs to use good criteria for determining
wages and salaries, to know how to make fair decisions about downsizing, and to
respond most appropriately to union organizing efforts and employee strikes. As a
community service organization, it has particular responsibilities to the community
in the way it advertises, how it disposes of medical waste, and the types of mergers
it enters into.
Leonard J. Weber is on the faculty of the
University of Detroit, Mercy. He has published over 70 articles and is the principal
author of the "Case Studies in Ethics" column in Clinical Leadership &
Management Review. He serves as an ethics consultant to several healthcare
organizations and is a past president of the Medical Ethics Resource Network of
Michigan.
Medical Ethics Series -- David H. Smith and Robert M.
Veatch, editors