Ethical Business Behavior at CVS
CVS is a pharmaceutical health care company that engages in the provision of mail order pharmacy, specialty pharmacy, retail pharmacy and retail clinic care. The company has a wide range of network outlets and a customer base that requires strict adherence to the industry's laws and regulations. The company has a set of guidelines to facilitate ethical business practice in operation across all its branches.
The corporation has in place a program on compliance and integrity owing to the vastness of its operations. The integrity and compliance program seek to ensure that the company's operations are responsive to the dynamics of the environment. The integrity and compliance program provide a code of conduct, procedures, policies and training regarding ethical behaviors. The company requires all its employees and branches to cooperate with investigations relating to compliance and regulations. The integrity and compliance program also provide incentives and disciplinary action in order to promote compliance and adherence to industrial regulations and rules.
In order to oversee business practices in the company's branches, a chief compliance officer is charged with the duty to overlook the implementation of the integrity and compliance program. Regular audits and investigations on misconducts reported are carried out. Written policy standards are also developed to guide the operations of the company branches...
The written policies as approved by the board of directors highlight expected legal and ethical behaviors of all employees. The chief compliance officer leads an appointed team of compliance officers to communicate the expected code of conduct and oversees its strict adherence.
The company also undertakes training programs through its Caremark integrity and compliance program. The training underscores the need to observe high ethical standards in operation in compliance with set rule and guidelines. The training is tailored to reflect current and upcoming business matters in relation to the environment of health care. The training exercise as reviewed by the compliance office presents real-life work scenarios that pose ethical dilemmas in the practice of pharmacy. This presentation gives the employees a true feel of the challenges they may or have encountered with an ethical measure to circumvent them.
In line with observing ethical behaviors, new full-time and part-time employees are required to undergo an integrity training program. In addition, the new employees are required to show some level of integrity and certify their knowledge of the code of conduct upon completion of the ethical training program. A subsequent training program is delivered to employees on the job in relation to their respective duties and in line with the rule and regulation of the industry.
In line with the company's core competencies…
