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Ethics consortium hosts annual conference on causing harm in health care

Within the healthcare setting, the ethical principle of First Do No Harm is one of the most frequently quoted tenets. Yet we read the Institute of Medicine’s report on the occurrence of medical errors and frequent news stories about how our health care system has failed to provide quality care for individual patients.

How can this be happening? Surely, healthcare professionals keep the duty to avoid harm foremost and fundamental to the goal of benefiting the patient and the community. In this era of health care, however, it is not always clear when benefit is achieved, when “costs” or burdens to the patient are justified, when burdens or lack of benefit become a harm, and when harm that occurs in the course of care crosses a line and becomes a wrong.

Entitled Causing Harm in the Name of Doing Good, the annual conference for the Health Care Ethics Consortium of Georgia will be held on April 23-24 at Simpsonwood Conference and Retreat Center. The conference welcomes several nationally known guest speakers. Rene Mallett, JD, RN from Licking Memorial Health System, Newark, Ohio, will present a best practice model on disclosing errors to patients and families. Emory University’s Dean of the School of Nursing, Marla Salmon, ScD, will discuss ethical concerns and potential harms resulting from the workforce shortage in health care, with special emphasis on the nursing shortage. Richard Zaner, PhD, Director of the Center for Clinical and Research Ethics at Vanderbilt University, will close the first day of the conference reflecting on “Harm that Helps and Help that Harms.”

In addition to plenary presentations, the participants will be offered the opportunity to join small group discussions led by local facilitators on specific harm causing dilemmas including topics such as medical error, pain and pain management, harm and suspicion within the African-American community, harm at the end of life, risks and rights in maintaining safety, HIPAA burdens and benefits, and quality of care in the presence of shifting responsibilities.

The second day of the conference will offer the opportunity for Ethics Committee members and healthcare providers from across the state with an interactive workshop on caring for patients and residents at the end of life.

Full brochure and registration forms will be available in February. More information can be obtained through the Consortium website at www.hcecg.org or by contacting Kathy Kinlaw at (404) 727-2201 or Karen Trotochaud at (404) 727-2796.

[ Posted by Kathy Kinlaw at March 1, 2002 08:45 AM | More HCECG articles ]

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