Excellence in patient care requires not only technical expertise and compassion, but also a thoughtful consideration of the ethical dimensions of health care delivery. This is critical because medicine is first and foremost a moral enterprise based on human values. A heightened awareness of the diverse dimenstions of the ethical aspects of health care can help institutions and practitioners respond to patients' needs more effectively, as well as clarify the complex issues inherent in the rapidly changing health care environment. Barnes-Jewish Hospital has established an Ethics Committee, multidisciplinary in membership, to further the delivery of excellent health care.
The Ethics Committee will strive to accomplish this mission by:
- Educating members of the medical center, the community and themselves about bioethical issues.
- Providing ethics case consultations regarding a specific patient's care. The role of these consultations is to provide a forum for the discussion of patient-related ethical issues. Such consultations may be requested by any of the patient's health care providers, by the patient or by the patient's family.
- Providing advice on the ethical dimensions of existing hospital policies, or proposing new Bioethics policies to the Medical Executive Committee.
If you have questions or comments, please send an e-mail to bjhethics@bjc.org and we will respond as soon as possible.