Main description:

The ethical dimensions of managing health services are daunting. The newest edition of Ethics in Health Services Management provides the principles to educate students and guide practitioners as they strive to make the "right" decision when ethical problems arise. This highly regarded volume teaches managers how to recognize and respond confidently to the challenges of ethics and conduct in health services management.

Offering a solid foundation for effectively identifying and solving ethical problems, this book objectively examines teh difficult choices and ethical implications raised as managers operationalize the principles of respect for persons, beneficence, nonmaleficence, and justice. It examines the role of the organization's culture and its values, mission, and vision. Specific attention is given to the importance of the manager's personal ethic, various types of specialized ethics committees, and the role of professional codes of ethics.

Further, the author thoughtfully explores numerous topics that affect contemporary health services organizations, including

Moral frameworks to apply to one's personal ethic

The importance of virtue ethics

Futility theory and futile treatment guidelines

Organizational philosophies and mission statements

Selecting new staff members using values compatibility

Systems conflict and conflicts of interest

Quality improvement as an ethical imperative

Determinants of patient consent

Issues surrounding physician-assisted suicide and patient autonomy

Ethics in marketing and managed care

Challenges of resource allocation

and much more

Filled with practical, problem-solving strategies and useful tools, this updated and expanded text features more cases than the previous edition, including seven all-new cases. Also new to this edition are expanded attention to public health and the coordination of community health services.

Ethics in Health Services Management will educate and inform those who would be leaders in health services organizations. Readers will come to understand their roles as moral agents, expected to balance the demands of the organization with the autonomy, primacy, and protection of patients. This is an indispensable text for health services management education and a primer for both clinical and nonclinical managers.