Ethics Consultation: Responding to Ethics Questions in Health Care 

Ethics consultation improves health care quality by helping staff members, patients, and families resolve ethical concerns. IntegratedEthics® IE) provides comprehensive standards, methods, and tools to ensure high quality ethics consultations in all VHA Facilities.

The Ethics Consultation Coordinator is a member of the E Council and oversees the facility's ethics consultation service and ongoing consultation activities. In the IE model, ethics consultation services use the CASES approach, which includes the following steps:

Clarify the consultant request

Assemble the relevant information

Synthesize the information

Explain the synthesis

Support the consultation process

IntegratedEthics in Action 

Ethics Consultant Proficiency Assessment Tool: National Results

Each year, VA ethics consultants complete the Ethics Consultation Proficiency Assessment Tool (EC PAT) to rate their proficiency in knowledge and skills areas that are required to provide competent health care ethics consultation. This article describes 2012  EC PAT results for VA.

 ECWeb: A Quality Improvement Tool     

The ethics consultation component of IntegratedEthics utilizes a Web-based software program called ECWeb to document, track, evaluate, manage, and continuously improve ethics consultation quality. 

Learn more about ECWeb 

Read          

Ethics Consultation: Responding to Ethics Questions in Health Care - 61-page primer provides an introduction to health care ethics consultation, and outlines a step-by-step approach to conducting ethics consultations using the CASES approach. Intended for staff who participate in ethics consultations, including leaders responsible for overseeing the ethics consultation function. 

National IntegratedEthics Policy (VHA Handbook 1004.06) - see sections 4, 5a, 9- 12

Watch 

Ethics Consultation: Responding to Ethics Questions in Health Care Video Part I - first of a two-part, interactive 45-minute video to teach viewers about the need for procedural consistency in the ethics consultation process, and to teach the CASES approach.  

Video Part I with Descriptive Captioning

Ethics Consultation: Responding to Ethics Questions in Health Care Video Part II - second of a two-part, interactive 43-minute video to teach viewers about the need for procedural consistency in the ethics consultation process, and to teach the CASES approach.

Video Part II with Descriptive Captioning

Course Materials to be used in conjunction with the Ethics Consultation videos Part I and II. 

Use

Ethics consultation core tools:

Ethics Consultation CASES Pocket Card - for Ethics Consultants

Ethics Case Consultation Summmary Sample, Fillable Form  

Ethics Consultation Feedback Tool - obtain customer satisfaction feedback from ethics consultation requestors 

Tools to increase awareness of ethics consultation:

Ethics Consultation (Customizable) Brochure 

Ethics Consultation (Customizable) Poster and Flyer 

Tools to asses ethics consultant knowledge and skills:

Ethics Consultant Proficiency Assessment Tool (EC PAT)  

Ethics Consultation Service Proficiency Assessment Tool (EC SPAT)  

Tools to explain the role of the ethics consultation coordinator:

Ethics Consultant Coordinator Training Tool and Hand-off Guide 

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IE Archive: Materials used in the initial launch of the VA IE program

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IE Highlights

Tools and resources for celebrating Compliance and Ethics Week

A special issue of AJOB Primary Research, a journal of the American Journal of Bioethics, features seven papers describing VA's experience evaluating ethics quality in the VA health care system as part of the IntegratedEthics comprehensive model for managing ethics in health care organizations.

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Additional Ethics Links 

The National Center for Ethics in Health Care has identified the following external sources of information for ethics in health care.

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