Health care ethics consultation: Nature, goals, and competencies - A position paper from the Society for Health and Human Values - Society for Bioethics Consultation Task Force on Standards for Bioethics Consultation

Patients, families, and health care providers have a right to expect that e thics consultants can deal competently with the complex issues that they ar e asked to address. The Society for Health and Human Values-Society for Bio ethics Consultation Task Force on Standards for Bioethics Consultation expl ored core competencies and related issues in ethics consultation. This posi tion paper summarizes the content of the resulting Task Force Report, which included nine general conclusions: 1) U.S. societal context makes "ethics facilitation" an appropriate approach to ethics consultation; 2) ethics fac ilitation requires certain core competencies; 3) core competencies can be a cquired in various ways; 4) individual consultants, teams, or committees sh ould have the core competencies for ethics consultation; 5) consult service s should have policies that address access, patient notification, documenta tion, and case review; 6) abuse of power and conflicts of interest must be avoided; 7) ethics consultation must have institutional support; 8) evaluat ion of process, outcomes, and competencies is needed; and 9) certification of individuals and accreditation of programs are rejected.