The healthcare service will experience severe hardships within the next ten years. Section III of the ACHE Code of Ethics outlines major executives’ responsibilities, and it is possible to assume that point B will be the most challenging. It states to “provide healthcare services consistent with available resources, and when there are limited resources, work to ensure the existence of a resource allocation process that considers ethical ramifications” (American College of Healthcare Executives, 2017, p. 2) Thus, it corresponds to the values domain comprised on professional and social responsibility competency of the National Center for Healthcare Leadership (NCHL) (2018) competencies. In addition, the provisions in the Code of Ethics require a high level of organizational awareness, such as understanding the limitations in resources and prioritizing the goals (National Center for Healthcare Leadership, 2018).
Moreover, the scope of the problem comes from several critical aspects associated with the responsibility. It touches upon the financial aspects of the healthcare sector, which might be scarce in numerous cases. The COVID-19 pandemic resulted in $202.6 billion in lost revenue for all healthcare systems (Kaye et al., 2021). At the same time, many households, especially the most vulnerable ones, such as Hispanic and Black ones, report a significant loss of income, meaning their ability to pay for health services reduces (Bruce et al., 2022). Researchers predict that the lack of finances will continue to affect the healthcare sector for the next several years after the pandemic (Kaye et al., 2021). It means that allocating available resources such as equipment, medications, and beds requires difficult ethical decisions from executives (Rawlings et al., 2021). Approaches viewed as standard ones might be reconsidered during hard times, which requires enhanced strategic orientation, communication, and analytical thinking. Ethical ramifications might play a critical role in making decisions about allocating limited sources and their exploitation to achieve the current goals.
Furthermore, the Code of Ethics and NCHL competencies on organizational awareness and professional responsibility promote non-discriminatory and ethical practices best exemplified during the pandemic. In order to extensively and comprehensively assess the triage policy of COVID-19 used globally, it is vital to define the ethical resource allocation framework as a metric for evaluation. The given assessment will utilize the Center for Disease Control’s (CDC) framework of ethical resource distribution. It states that “critical care allocation during a pandemic emergency should uphold basic biomedical principles through maintenance of procedural justice which requires decision-making that is consistent, impartial, neutral, and nondiscriminatory” (Basu, 2021, p. 1). Thus, resource allocation procedures must not discriminate, favor, or be partial to specific groups of people. Death from severe symptoms acts as a prime target under triage, which is prevented by considering the likelihood of survival as well.
It is possible to predict a long period of financial instability caused by several external factors. It means that the problem of limited resources will remain topical within the next ten years, and care providers will have to address it. The discussed aspect will be topical for all areas of healthcare as the clients’ demands will remain diverse. For this reason, the effective use of limited resources will imply ethical ramifications and the necessity to make the best choice in terms of every scenario. Altogether, it is possible to conclude that healthcare executives will face the challenge of ethical management of scarce resources during the next ten years. It is linked to healthcare’s organizational, financial, and managerial aspects.
References
American College of Healthcare Executives. (2017). Code of ethics. Web.
Basu, S. (2021). Approaches to critical care resource allocation and triage during the COVID-19 pandemic: An examination from a developing world perspective. Journal of Medical Ethics and History of Medicine, 14(5), 1-11. Web.
Bruce, C., Gearing, M., DeMatteis, J., Levin, K., Mulcahy, T., Newsome J., & Wivagg, J. (2022) Financial vulnerability and the impact of COVID-19 on American households. PLoS ONE 17(1): e0262301. Web.
Kaye, A. D., Okeagu, C. N., Pham, A. D., Silva, R. A., Hurley, J. J., Arron, B. L., Sarfraz, N., Lee, H. N., Ghali, G. E., Gamble, J. W., Liu, H., Urman, R. D., & Cornett, E. M. (2021). Economic impact of COVID-19 pandemic on healthcare facilities and systems: International perspectives. Best Practice & Research. Clinical Anaesthesiology, 35(3), 293–306. Web.
National Center for Healthcare Leadership. (2018). NCHL health leadership competency model 3.0. Web.
Rawlings, A., Brandt, L., Ferreres, A., Asbun, H., & Shadduck, P. (2021). Ethical considerations for allocation of scarce resources and alterations in surgical care during a pandemic. Surgical Endoscopy, 35(5), 2217–2222. Web.