August 15, 2003
Health care leaders challenged to foster ethical organizations
By Karen Trotochaud. With a strong recommendation for healthcare organizations to conduct an “organizational ethics audit,” Paul Hoffamn, DrPH, from Provenance Health Partners, challenged health care leaders and professionals to move toward an organizational culture of ethics beginning with an assessment of their ethical climate.
As keynote speaker for the Health Care Ethics Consortium of Georgia’s annual conference entitled A Time for Renewal: Moving from Problem-Based Approaches to a Culture of Ethics, held April 2-3, 2003 at the Loudermilk Center in Atlanta, Dr Hoffman set the tone for this meeting.
Presenters providing examples of Georgia organizations pursuing the integration of ethics within their organizations included Mary Ann Bowman Beil, Corporate Ethics and Compliance Officer for Memorial Health University Medical Center, Savannah, who spoke on “The Quest for Corporate Integrity in Health Care” and Sr. Jane Gerety, Senior VP for Sponsorship and Compliance for Saint Joseph’s Health System, Atlanta, who spoke on “A Model for Supporting Managers in Implementing Ethics.”
Since ethics must pervade all levels of an organization, conference participants heard from two panels composed of healthcare leaders from all levels of the organization, including the hospital board of directors, senior administration, medical leadership, and nursing leadership, and in differing departments including pharmacy, marketing, and finance.
Melissa Snarr from the Center for Ethics concluded the first day with a discussion of individual leadership and how on person can make a difference. On the second day of the conference, attendees participated in a round table discussion focused on current hot topics facing various Georgia Ethics Committees as they struggle to foster ethics within their organizations.
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