Importance of Ethics in Healthcare

As a person who has decided to dedicate his life to health care, I studied the model that the Cleveland Clinic has put forward in the health care field. Cleveland Clinic is a medical care company based in Cleveland, Ohio. They also have hospitals and clinics all over the world. Their mission, according to their website, is to provide better care of the sick, investigate into solutions for their problems and further education of those who serve. This truly means that they provide some of the world’s best health care to anyone that needs it, are willing to go above and beyond to look into for patients with illness of unknown origins and provide educational opportunities for health care providers within their system and to health care providers around the world.

In order to carry out these objectives, they provide specialized care that is backed by research and education. This often leads to them to developing and, then, sharing any and all new technology.

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This attracts the best of the best for staff for the clinic. They also aim to excel in service which means they will provide affordable medical care to anyone in need. Most of all, they aim to ensure that Cleveland Clinic’s quality is thoughtful for all situations to ensure that their mission statement never fails. I chose to write about Cleveland Clinic due to their reputation within the medical field.

To understand why Cleveland Clinic made the list of the most ethical company, you first need to look to the statement released at the time.

“This award demonstrates out pledge to do what’s right whether it’s for our patients, our caregivers, the community or the overall organization; Cleveland Clinic is committed to transparency, social responsibility, environmental stewardship and ethical decision-making in all facets of out enterprise.” This was said by Cleveland Clinic Chief Integrity Officer Donald A. Sinko. You can see all this when looking at their code of conduct that every employee agrees to abide by. In that agreement, they focus on seven principles: legal and regulatory compliance, business ethics, conflicts of interest, appropriate use of resources, confidentiality, professional conduct and responsibility.

As one can imagine, the code of conduct cover everything from the legal side to comprehensive business ethics to how ones should conduct oneself when both working and outside of work. They realize that every employee is a representative of Cleveland Clinic and because of this, they want to make sure all employees conduct themselves both ethically and, in a way, that reflects well on the clinic.

The code of conduct of Cleveland Clinic has many of the elements of the categorical imperatives of Kant’s theory. The main idea behind categorical imperatives is that it gives directions, irrespectively of ones or, in this case, the company desires. Categorical imperative could be called the golden rule of business because of its connection to morality. Morality should not be an option in business and thus, morality should be built from the categorical imperative. This can clearly be seen in how Cleveland Clinic has written their code of conduct.

Ethical egoism claims that one or a business should seek to fulfill their own self-interest, and they do not have any obligations to purse other’s interests, besides their own. This is not a very good model for a business to use because it would lead the business to mislead or take advantage of the customers that use the services of the business. The business’s who use ethical egoism as a business model are only seeking profits and only see the customers as a tool to those profits. In saying this, Cleveland Clinic does not follow an ethical egoism business plan. This is clearly stated in the code of conduct that Cleveland Clinic is committed to the highest standards of business ethics and integrity (cite this).

If I had to run a company of the same size of reputation as the Cleveland Clinic, I would most definitely follow Kant’s theory, especially that of categorical imperatives. It clearly states that even if we want to cheat at something and that cheating will have a favorable outcome for us, we shouldn’t cheat no matter outcomes. I think this would allow the business to grow both in consumer numbers and in profits. A well-respected company will attract both new and old costumers thus allowing for the profits to grow.

Cleveland Clinic fully deserved to be named one of the most ethical company. Most importantly, they are still at work to improve year to year. Any company that does not continue to work and fight to be the best while stay true to their values will lose their ethics and morals quickly. From my view point and research, it is clear that Cleveland Clinic has every intention of staying true to their code of conduct, morals and standards for providing excellent, accurate and innovative medical treatment and research.