Review of Adult Ethics Consultations at a Statewide Health System in 2023

Limited data exists that examines the reasons clinical ethics consultations in the healthcare industry are requested. To add to the literature, we have evaluated the reasons clinic ethics consults were requested at Indiana Health University (IUH) in 2023 to improve future patient care, identify quality improvement opportunities, educate fellow team members at IUH, as well as to inform research and address institutional policy changes. This information was identified through data collected using the REDCap Database and Cerner, the electronic medical record that is used at IUH. Our results show 170 ethics consultations were requested between the dates of January 1, 2023, to December 31, 2023, for adult patients, including inpatient and outpatient locations. Provider moral distress was identified to be the most frequent ethics issue that arose, along with patient best interest and decision-making capacity. The ethics consultation service at IUH has reviewed the data collected in this study and is actively working to improve ethics education opportunities for bedside team members, identifying recurrent ethical dilemmas, and improving the overall function of the ethics consultation service.