Analyzing Ethical Problems in Health Care – Assessment Instructions

Competency 1: Articulate ethical issues in health care

Write a paper that analyzes a selected ethical problem in health care.

We wrap things up with an assessment that concerns the most urgent problem in the ethics of health care—which you will determine. It may be something that affects the entire country, a specific region, or a community (such as rural or urban communities). You may choose a problem within your own community. It may be something that affects a particular profession or field in health care. Your paper can focus on something you have read about or a firsthand experience as a health care professional or consumer.

Competency 1: Articulate ethical issues in health care. 

Effectively summarize ethical issues surrounding a health care problem.

Competency 2: Apply sound ethical thinking related to a health care issue. 

Demonstrate sound ethical thinking in applying ethical principles and moral theories to a specific case.

Competency 3: Analyze ethical issues associated with patient care from the perspectives of various health care professionals. 

1. Analyze an ethical problem from the perspectives of various stakeholders.

2. Assess the policy, legal, and regulatory components to an ethical problem.

Competency 4: Explain the conceptual framework that health care leaders use to make ethical decisions. 

1. Apply ethical theories and principles to an ethical problem.

2. Develop a solution to an ethical problem based on ethical theories and principles.

Competency 5: Apply in text the standard writing conventions for the discipline, including structure, voice, person, tone, and citation formatting. 

1. Provide validation and support within written communications by including relevant examples and supporting evidence using APA citations.

2. Write with minimal errors in grammar, usage, spelling, and mechanics

In this assessment, you will choose an ethical problem in the health care industry for analysis. Having chosen an issue, you will research it using the Capella library, the Internet, and other sources at your disposal. Make sure to evaluate the reliability of sources that you use, especially those from the Internet.

Most health care organizations today have an ethics committee comprising various staff members and community members. The committee consults with staff and administrators on cases posing particularly challenging ethical dilemmas, but it has other functions as well. Consider the following:

1. What are the primary duties of an ethics committee?

2. On what types of cases does the committee consult? Does the committee simply determine what should be done in such cases?

3. What kinds of professional roles are represented on ethics committees?

4. What is the value of ethics committees to your professional role?

5. If you have direct experience with ethics committees, what have you observed?

Identify a current issue in health care ethics that you consider urgent. This may be an issue at the national level, in your own community, or anywhere in between. You may focus on something you have read about or know from firsthand experience as a health care professional or consumer.

Write an analysis of a selected ethical problem in health care. You must respond to each of the following criteria. You may choose to respond to any or all of the prompts below each criterion.

Effectively summarize ethical issues surrounding a health care problem. 

1. What is the problem?

2. Which communities and populations does it affect?

3. What are the ethical issues raised by the problem?