STEGH Ethical Framework
"Organizational Values, a strong policy framework for decision-making and leadership are critically important support to employees in dealing with ethical issues. It is also very important that the ethics framework is CEO driven, as this sets the tone for our requirement for accreditation."
Paul Collins, President and CEO
The provision of health care is an activity grounded in values and governed by ethics. Ethical situations, challenges and choices constantly arise in health care -- from the bedside to the boardroom -- and the ethics frameworks supports all members of the health care community as we strive to practice ethically and with integrity.
Good decisions reflect:
- vision and values;
- provincial and federal legislation;
- accepted principles of bioethics and business ethics, and professional codes of ethics;
- the trust placed in STEGH by our community;
- the public demand for accountability, privacy, transparency, and service.
Ethics Leads
Your Manager or their delegate is your first point of contact
Other resources of contact:
- Terri Benwell, Professional Practice Leader
- Professional Practice Council Members
- Lori Worthington, Privacy Officer
Goals of the Ethics Program
Education Goals…
- to raise awareness of the Ethics Resources among all hospital employees and physicians
- to enhance sensitivity of employees to ethical issues
- to assist caregivers to better understand the legal, ethical and moral dimensions of their decisions
Policy Review Goals…
- to review any hospital polices involving an ethical component
- to provide feedback, and recommendations to appropriate individuals
Policy Development and Ethical Practice
Many ethically difficult situations are not unique in the principles or values that are at play (though each situation will be unique in its circumstances) so it is often useful to develop policy to deal with similar situations in a similar fashion and to guide practitioners in their deliberation and action. All STEGH policies are approved by the executive team, where they will be reviewed to ensure they support our common vision, mission, and values of the organization. Additional supports of review are our ethics leads in the organization and our ethics consultant is available.
We commit ourselves to live our hospital Values in our workgroup and to support each other in our daily activities to demonstrate the following behaviours of compassion, accountability, respect, excellence and safety.
Organizational structures to support ethical practice:
Professional Practice Council
Many organizations have an ethics committee, but those committees vary widely in their functions and usefulness. Far too often an ethics committee exists merely because it is thought to be necessary. At STEGH the Professional Practice Councils role includes Ethics Consultation and Policy Review.
Ethics Consultation
a forum for listening respectfully to all individuals involved
assistance in the clarification of issues
support for all in struggles to discern the best course of action
assistance to achieve consensus or an appropriate compromise for those in conflict
Confidential discussion
Ethics consultations are not used in place of appropriate grievance mechanisms or before individuals or teams have tried to work through the issues together.
STEGH Ethics Consultant: Dr. Rob Butcher
Patient Safety/Risk Council
The Patient Safety/Risk Council is a multi-disciplinary team meets regularly to review data and trends and to make recommendations for improvement in patient safety. Through this team the case review may result in escalation of issues up to the Board QRS committee.
Research Ethics
St. Thomas Elgin General Hospital (STEGH) will follow standards for staff/affiliates regarding their access to PHI for research, education, and quality assurance purposes. The established procedure applies to all PHI compiled in the organization’s health records, regardless of the medium or storage location.
Access to Personal Health Information (PHI) for Research Purposes
Staff/affiliates may access the organization’s PHI for research purposes provided that:
- A related research plan must be approved by the Research Ethics Board.
- A member of the research team submits a written request to access Personal Health Information for research, education and quality assurance to the Manager of Health Information and Privacy or delegate.
- Member(s) of the research team must present their Hospital ID badge, or other acceptable personal identification, at the time a request to review/retrieve a hard-copy health record is made. Hard-copy health records are retrieved by Health Records.
- Member(s) of the research team accessing the EPR/Cerner for research purposes must record within each patient’s EPR the reason for their access.