Academy Experts Author New Book on Ethics of Hospital Trustees

NEW YORK CITY, July 13???Hospitals are complex institutions that play a fundamental role in society as a whole and affect people they employ and serve. Yet often overlooked are those individuals faced with the heaviest moral responsibility to all of those affiliated with and affected by the institution: hospital trustees.

The Ethics of Hospital Trustees, newly published by Georgetown University, June 2004, describes and analyzes the moral issues that are part of the role of nonprofit hospital trustees. It focuses particularly on trustees??? responsibility in maintaining the ethical integrity of the hospital and the struggle to keep it both mission-oriented and financially sound, while adhering to legal and traditional values in a competitive environment. Basic principals of trusteeship in nonprofit hospitals include: 1) fidelity to mission, 2) service to patients, 3) service to the community, and 4) institutional stewardship.

A collaboration between The New York Academy of Medicine and The Hastings Center, the book grew out of the work of a task force of experts, and interviews with several trustees and CEOs from fifteen nonprofit hospitals from the New York metropolitan area, plus six hospitals elsewhere in which trustees had faced the question of conversion to for-profit organizations. The thirteen papers in the book examine trusteeship from historical, legal, ethical and empirical perspectives.

Below are a few complex scenarios faced by trustees who were interviewed for the book and that are analyzed in the book:

• To sell or not to sell the hospital
  
• How to respond to medical error
  
• Allocation of financial resources
  
• Addressing changing community needs
  
• Closing a facility or converting from nonprofit to for-profit status
  

Non-profit hospital trustees are volunteers from an array of backgrounds. They are entrusted by financial supporters, health professionals and patients and their families to address issues that affect life and death, overall quality of healthcare and the interests of the community. The contributors to The Ethics of Hospital Trustees present the reader with various situations faced by trustees and consider how they do and should act as individuals and as boards. The book argues that ethical analysis provides a useful point from which to understand the complex responsibilities of hospital trustees.

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THE ETHICS OF HOSPITAL TRUSTEES
Edited by: Bruce Jennings, Bradford H. Gray, Virginia A. Sharpe, Alan R. Fleischman
Georgetown University Press
ISBN: 1589010159
LC: 2003019806
Hardcover/292 pages/June 2004/$64.95

*To set up an interview, contact Christine Visich at (212) 822-7375 or cvisich@nyam.org.

*To request a review copy, please contact Jenni Brewer at (202) 687-9298 or jrb52@georgtown.edu.

Posted on July 14, 2004

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Contact:
Andrew J. Martin
Director of Communications
The New York Academy of Medicine
1216 Fifth Avenue
New York, New York 10029
212-822-7285
amartin@nyam.org

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