Question

applied law and ethics question for health professionals.

During the coronavirus pandemic many hospital administrators and leaders were forced to create triage plans. If faced with inadequate medical supplies, many hospitals and physicians may be forced to decide who receives certain types of care, such as ventilators. For example, Cassie Sauer, the chief executive of the Washington State Hospital Association, said that her group is preparing a triage plan so that decisions will not be left to individual hospitals and physicians: "It's protecting the clinicians so you don't have one person who's kind of playing God." Dr. Cameron Buck, president of the Washington chapter of the American College of Emergency Physicians, said, "Now we are getting down to the point of how you would deploy it, when would you deploy it, who needs to know about it. In my career, I can't think of any other example where we have come this far, and had to make these preparations and develop these frameworks in real time with a moderate probability of having to use this work." Answer the following: 1. Every accredited hospital in the U.S. is required to have some mechanism for addressing ethical issues like these. Typically, hospitals have an established ethics committee to help work through these decisions. Besides medical professionals, who else should serve on ethics committees to help guide these tough decisions?

Answer 1

Other than the Hospital ethics committees, the Institutional ethics committes (IEC) are the ones who help in taking decisions in tough situations. The members in IEC include

1. Physicians of various specialitis

2. Nurses of various specialities

3.Social workers, patient representatives, discharge planners

4.Physical and respiratory therapies

5. Clergy

6.Hospital administratives

7.Community representatives

8.Attorneys and ethicists

9.Lawyers annd theoretical ethicists

Other than them some companies also will come with helping hands to provide needed supply in the tough situations.