Course Description
The United States Healthcare system is facing continuous change on multiple fronts: access to care, quality of health care, rapidly changing technologies in prevention, treatment, and administration, informed consent and patient access to information and healthcare records, and
recent legislative changes to Medicare and the Affordable Care Act. This course explores the ethical implications facing various kinds of healthcare facilities and practices, underscored by the essential tension between effective healthcare delivery and rising costs. Topics addressed include ethical theory and justice, moral integrity, organizational mission and culture, institutional codes of ethics, patient-centered issues (privacy, experimentation and autonomy, end-of-life issues), public health ethics (population health and epidemiology), market forces, and community responsibility.