By Kurt Darr, J.D., Sc.D., FACHE

With more material than in any previous edition, the fourth edition of Ethics in Health Services Management addresses such critical contemporary issues as patient autonomy, end-of-life decisions, consent for treatment, appropriate resource allocation, whistleblowing, and confidentiality. An enhanced focus on virtue ethics and values plus closer scrutiny of futility treatment and physician-assisted suicide are new to this edition. Eighty incisive case studies and vignettes from a full range of care delivery settings demonstrate how to use various ethical constructs to analyze situations and subsequently make more organized, defensible decisions. Offering a framework for identifying and solving ethical dilemmas, this acclaimed text reveals how to

• understand and apply ethical principles
  
  
• approach ethical paradoxes with sound problem-solving methodology
  
  
• formulate personal and professional codes of ethics
  
  
• identify, link, and integrate values, vision, and mission statements
  
  
• develop and use institutional review boards and ethics committees
  
  
• resolve conflicts of interest and avoid self-dealing
  
  
• maximize community benefit while protecting and enhancing organization assets
  

Continuing its longstanding reputation, this popular text provides students and practicing managers with the ethical underpinnings needed to deal wisely, justly, and successfully with both the inherent conflicts existing within health services delivery systems and with the unexpected, sometimes heartbreaking dilemmas arising wherever life and death meet. This is an indispensable text for physician and nurse executives and for courses in health services organization and management, strategic planning, finance, marketing, and nursing management.

About the Author
Preface
Acknowledgments

Introduction

1. Identifying and Solving Ethical Problems
   
   
   1. Considering Moral Philosophies and Principles
      
   2. Resolving Ethical Issues
      
      
2. Guiding Ethical Decision Making
   
   
   3. Developing Organizational Values, Vision, and Mission
      
   4. Codes of Ethics in Health Services
      
   5. Organizational Responses to Ethical Problems
      
      
3. Administrative Ethical Issues
   
   
   6. Conflicts of Interest and Fiduciary Duty
      
   7. Ethical Issues Regarding Organization and Staff
      
   8. Ethical Issues Regarding Patients and Community