Ethics rounds: affecting ethics quality at all organisational levels

Area of Science:

• Bioethics
• Healthcare Management
• Clinical Ethics

Background:

• Clinical ethics support (CES) services are increasingly recognized but face challenges in clinical integration.
• Traditional CES models often do not fully meet expectations for acceptance and integration into daily hospital processes.

Purpose of the Study:

• To explore ethics rounds as a potential solution to improve CES integration and acceptance.
• To assess the impact of ethics rounds on addressing clinical needs and enhancing hospital ethics quality.

Main Methods:

• Implementation of ethics rounds within a hospital setting.
• Evaluation of the impact on clinical sections' needs and overall ethics quality.

Main Results:

• Ethics rounds demonstrated an improved ability to address the needs of clinical sections.
• The implementation led to a more comprehensive understanding of hospital ethics quality.

Conclusions:

• Ethics rounds can serve as a valuable instrument, either supplementary or alternative, to traditional CES.
• This approach enhances ethics quality across decision-making, actions, systems, processes, and ethical leadership.