Ethics Committees in Nursing Homes: Applying the Hospital Experience

Zweibel, Nancy R., Cassel, Christine K., The Hastings Center Report

Ethics Committees in Nursing Homes: Applying the Hospital Experience

The need to develop effective methods for addressing ethical issues in clinical care is even greater in nursing homes than acute care hospitals. Institutionalization in itself raises a basic concern about the privacy and self-determination of long-term care patients. This is heightened by the fact that although 50-70 percent of these residents suffer some impairment of their decisional capacity, many lack legal guardians or involved family members to serve as surrogate decisionmakers. [1] Lack of clarity about the role of aggressive treatment, the comparative frequency with which decisions about the use of potentially life-sustaining treatment must be made, and the minimal presence of physicians in daily care in nursing homes increase the need to create institutional means to respond to the ethical dimensions of patient care in these facilities.

Ethics committees, although still rare, are being formed with growing frequency in nursing homes. [2] Discussion of the role and composition of these committees in the literature is based largely on experience in the acute care setting. Ethics …

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Publication information: Article title: Ethics Committees in Nursing Homes: Applying the Hospital Experience. Contributors: Zweibel, Nancy R. - Author, Cassel, Christine K. - Author. Journal title: The Hastings Center Report. Volume: 18. Issue: 4 Publication date: August-September 1988. Page number: 23+. © 1999 Hastings Center. COPYRIGHT 1988 Gale Group.

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