Brief Summary:
COVID-19 emphasized the importance of LTC physicians using individualized proposals when a healthcare decision is required, to ensure wanted and beneficial treatment, and proper resource utilization.
Long-term care (LTC) centers experienced an unprecedented emergency involving exponential mortality during the COVID-19 pandemic. Individuals residing in long-term care were particularly vulnerable to the effects of COVID-19, placing residents, staff, families, and organizations in a precarious position. Complex issues surrounding how to manage vulnerable populations during the pandemic have highlighted the importance of gathering information on ethical issues that require effective policy and decision-making. This project sought to identify the ethical issues faced in long-term care by residents, families, staff, and organizations from stakeholders themselves. A total of 305 participants from 45 countries responded, highlighting numerous ethical issues in long-term care during COVID-19. While numerous issues were mentioned, there was an overlap in the themes of responses between stakeholders. Visitation, isolation, harm, staff well-being, and the overall enforcement of policies during the pandemic represented the most often discussed issues. As a preliminary study of this issue, future research is necessary in order to effectively guide pandemic policymaking moving forward.
Hospital ethics committees (HECs) help clinicians deal with the ethical challenges which have been raised during clinical practice. A comprehensive literature review was conducted to provide a historical background of the development of HECs internationally and describe their functions and practical challenges of their day to day work. This is the first part of a comprehensive literature review conducted between February 2014 and August 2016 by searching through scientific databases. The keyword ethics committee, combined with hospital, clinic, and institution, was used without a time limitation. All original and discussion articles, as well as other scientific documents were included. Of all the articles and theses found using these keywords, only 56 were consistent with the objectives of the study. Based on the review goals, the findings were divided into three main categories; the inception of HECs in the world, the function of HECs, and the challenges of HECs. According to the results, the Americas Region and European Region countries have been the most prominent considering the establishment of HECs. However, the majority of the Eastern Mediterranean Region and SouthEast Asia Region countries are only beginning to establish these committees in their hospitals. The results highlight the status and functions of HECs in different countries and may be used as a guide by health policymakers and managers who are at the inception of establishing these committees in their hospitals.
scite is a Brooklyn-based organization that helps researchers better discover and understand research articles through Smart Citations–citations that display the context of the citation and describe whether the article provides supporting or contrasting evidence. scite is used by students and researchers from around the world and is funded in part by the National Science Foundation and the National Institute on Drug Abuse of the National Institutes of Health.