Whistle Blowing in Healthcare

Abstract

Ethical behavior, decision-making and leadership are becoming increasingly important in the healthcare environment where the traditional “service orientation” is being replaced by an almost exclusive “profit orientation.” This fixation on the profit oriented business model has ominous implications for the ethical provision of healthcare services. Healthcare organizations have been in the process of restructuring for over a decade and practitioners, patients and society are questioning unethical practices in managed care including gag rules, lack of full disclosure and compensation plans that reward withholding of healthcare services. There has been very little information published about organizational and administrative ethics in the healthcare literature.Individuals employed by healthcare organizations have a very large diversity in moral ideology reflective of society at large. Under these circumstances it is necessary for the HCO to identify basic and common core values and beliefs. It is from this perspective that we will examine an organization’s responsibility to create, define, and manage ethical behavior for the organization.Key Words: Ethics, ethical decision making, health care administration, institutional leadership, managerial ethics, organizational culture, organizational ethics, health care workers and organizational values.