title: St. Louis system has Corporate Ethics Committee. Sisters of Mercy Health System has developed an approach for assisting in the integration of ethics and operations.
abstract: Despite the relatively recent advent of organizational ethics committees--created to address operational concerns that are not always appropriate for a clinical ethics committee to take on--there remain impediments (such as time constraints, limited ethical expertise, lack of senior leaders at the table, and waning interest of members) to the impact such a group might have. Committed to addressing operational concerns in a meaningful and "value-added" way, and mindful of the challenges that can limit the effectiveness of organizational ethics committees, the St. Louis-based Sisters of Mercy Health System developed an approach that has proven successful. Without changing the committee's goals-education, policy, and consultation-Mercy's renewed Corporate Ethics Committee was restructured to include ethical experts, people knowledgeable about particular issues, and people with authority.
authors.affiliation: Sisters of Mercy Health System, St Louis, USA.
authors.forename: Brian
authors.initials: B
authors.lastname: O'Toole
mesh_terms: D017041:Ethics Committees; D006739:Hospital Administration; D016519:Hospitals, Religious; D008923:Missouri; D019982:Organizational Case Studies