Hospital Organizational Ethics

Hospital organizational ethics refers to the corpus of principles, codes, beliefs and organizational values by which one can evaluate and regulate the actions of the medical personnel. This study presents a series of applicative frameworks of organizational ethics: organization classification from the ethical point of view, ethical issues in hospital activity, sources of organizational ethics (virtue approach, common good, honesty and justice, duty, utilitarianism), stages in the elaboration and implementation of the ethical codes’ system, aspects of the hospital ethical committees’ organization and functioning (personnel component, activities, results). Finally, some of the effects of the application of hospital organizational ethics are presented: the ethical climate (concern, legislation, codes, rules, instruments, and independence), immoral practice prevention, the solving of classical ethical problems (e.g. inequality, patient rights). The authors would like to highlight the fact that the ethical committees’ activity should be an integrative component of hospital activities, authorized to solve ethical problems wherever these might occur. This activity should not be regarded as a sporadic one, initiated only when a specific incident or situation require a solution.