Letting Go of the Status Quo: One Program's Experience Discontinuing Ethics Committees and Creating Alternative...

AbstractThe authors describe their Ethics Program's transition from utilizing ethics committees to instead implementing a three-initiative structure consisting of Ethics Grand Rounds, an Ethics Liaison Network, and an Ethics Advisory Group. They first outline the history of ethics committees. Then, they discuss the history of their Ethics Program and the challenges that ethics committees posed. Next, they describe their approach to developing new initiatives for non-ethicist healthcare professionals to engage in ethics work and what these initiatives specifically entail. They then describe how they worked to secure buy-in for dissolving their ethics committees and, based on pre- and post-implementation surveys, how this transition has been received by former ethics committee members. Finally, the authors reflect on what has been gained and lost through these changes and offer insights and recommendations for other ethics programs thinking about discontinuing their own ethics committees in favor of more innovative models.