Institutional Ethics Resources: Creating Moral Spaces

Date
2016-09
Language
English
Embargo Lift Date
Committee Members
Degree
Degree Year
Department
Grantor
Journal Title
Journal ISSN
Volume Title
Found At
Wiley
Abstract

Since 1992, institutions accredited by The Joint Commission have been required to have a process in place that allows staff members, patients, and families to address ethical issues or issues prone to conflict. While the commission's expectations clearly have made ethics committees more common, simply having a committee in no way demonstrates its effectiveness in terms of the availability of the service to key constituents, the quality of the processes used, or the outcomes achieved. Beyond meeting baseline accreditation standards, effective ethics resources are requisite for quality care for another reason. The provision of care to the sick is a practice with profound moral dimensions. Clinicians need what Margaret Urban Walker has called “moral spaces,” reflective spaces within institutions in which to explore and communicate values and ethical obligations as they undergird goals of care. Walker proposed that ethicists needed to be concerned with the design and maintenance of these moral spaces. Clearly, that concern needs to extend beyond ethicists to institutional leaders. This essay uses Walker's idea of moral space to describe individuals and groups who are actual and potential ethics resources in health care institutions. We focus on four requisite characteristics of effective resources and the challenges to achieving them, and we identify strategies to build them. In our view, such moral spaces are particularly important for nurses and their colleagues on interprofessional teams and need to be expanded and strengthened in most settings.

Description
item.page.description.tableofcontents
item.page.relation.haspart
Cite As
Hamric, A. B., & Wocial, L. D. (2016). Institutional Ethics Resources: Creating Moral Spaces. Hastings Center Report, 46, S22–S27. https://doi.org/10.1002/hast.627
ISSN
Publisher
Series/Report
Sponsorship
Major
Extent
Identifier
Relation
Journal
Hastings Center Report
Source
Author
Alternative Title
Type
Article
Number
Volume
Conference Dates
Conference Host
Conference Location
Conference Name
Conference Panel
Conference Secretariat Location
Version
Author's manuscript
Full Text Available at
This item is under embargo {{howLong}}