Hospital ethics committees: problems in evaluation

Hospital ethics committees continue to proliferate, despite the fact that their impact upon practice has not been rigorously evaluated. This paper investigates the reasons why the often recommended evaluation has not yet occurred. One reason cited is that three different roles - education, policy formulation, and case review - need to be assessed. The principal reason why the most novel of the roles, case review, has not been evaluated is because of unresolved dispute over the goals of review.