Medical Ethics and Code of Conduct at Baptist Health

Introduction: Ethics in Healthcare

In the healthcare profession, it is vitally important to maintain a standard of ethics and a code of conduct. This provides a platform upon which doctors and patients can interact, as well as resolve any possible disputes. While all graduates from medical schools no longer formally take the Hippocratic Oath (Green, 2009), the main premise behind its principles remains intact in all medical facilities. Basic principles such as autonomy and informed consent, beneficence and nonmaleficence, distribution of care, confidentiality, and truthfulness form part of the ethical code at any medical establishment, and of healthcare practice in general.

Baptist Health South Florida is no exception to this. Its personnel are expected to follow a certain code of conduct in their work with patients. Patients are to feel that they have received excellent care during their stay at the hospital.

Beneficence, Nonmaleficence, and Charity Care

One of the principles advocated by Baptist Health is Community Benefit and Charity Care. This fits into the category of beneficence and nonmaleficence. Under this principle, the patient is not to come to any harm or be denied treatment that can prevent harm during their stay. Specifically, Baptist Health manifests this as respectful treatment and care for those with emergency situations. Care is provided without regard to ability or source of payment. As such, Baptist Health recognizes its role and responsibility as a healthcare provider to all citizens within the community it serves. Charity care is provided to persons who meet the established criteria for such situations.

The principle of beneficence and nonmaleficence is, however, not without its challenges. While Baptist Health professes to provide emergency care to all persons in need of such services, the practical application of such care must also be taken into account. Indeed, where there are limited resources and time, there are also limitations on the ability to "do good." When emergencies are too numerous to permit adequate or timely care, priority should be given to the most urgent cases, with the rest either waiting or being referred to other facilities.

A further limitation involves the ability to pay. Healthcare facilities need money to implement the latest technology in order to adequately serve their patients. They simply cannot fully subscribe to the beneficence principle without adequate access to financial resources to ensure that patients may expect this standard of care. At some point, there will need to be a compromise between doing good and gaining the funds necessary to continue doing good.

Providing charity care to those meeting certain criteria is one aspect of this balance. Those with financial problems can be accommodated only because those with medical aid schemes can pay for their service. Once again, a careful balance is needed between charity and paying cases in order to ensure that the hospital fulfills its function adequately and with the necessary attention to its mission as a healthcare provider to the community.

Distributive Justice and Quality of Care

Baptist Health also subscribes to the principle of Quality of Care, which can be seen as an aspect of the ethics of distributive justice. In this, Baptist's aim is to provide a high quality of care to all types of persons, regardless of race, color, religion, sex, sexual preference, national origin, or disability. The facility sees its function within this principle as distributing its resources fairly among all patients in need of its services.

Here also, financial considerations take a subordinate position to the needs of the patient. Fairness is ensured by determining clinical decisions — such as tests, treatments, and other forms of intervention — solely according to the established needs of the patient. The aim of the hospital in this respect is to provide a high quality of care not only to all emergency patients, but also to all patients who come with non-emergency needs. In this way, the fair distribution principle is closely connected with beneficence and nonmaleficence.

The principle also brings with it the same dilemma: how to obtain a balance between funding needs and the drive to care for the community. Furthermore, managed care issues such as Medicaid should also be taken into account when weighing the benefits to the community. A strain on the Medicaid budget as a result of managed care can lead to raised healthcare costs and an increase in Medicaid bills (Shern et al., 2008).

The fair distribution principle is, in such cases, a difficult issue. On the one hand, patients receiving managed care benefit in terms of their health and keeping their costs low, while society in general does not benefit — and indeed the increase in costs to them can be seen as unfair. On the other hand, the benefit derived from managed care can be seen as fair to certain patients. As noted above, caring for some patients and not for others on the grounds of financial issues is not fair, while expecting the community to incur increased costs from managed care is also unfair. Again, a careful balance should be maintained between costs, quality, and distribution of care.

Conclusion: The Value of a Professional Code of Conduct

A professional code of conduct is vital for all medical facilities. In spite of potential shortcomings, these principles protect both patients and their caregivers. They ensure the fair distribution of services and the quality of care according to patient needs rather than patient wealth. In this way, the code of conduct ensures that those in need of medical care can expect the best from their medical facilities. While standardizing such codes has its own challenges, it is also beneficial in terms of ensuring the best care and protection for patients.