Healthcare Week 4, Research Paper Example

In order to promote a corporate culture that values ethical decision making, managers need to lead with consciously stated values, their own actions, and set behavioral standards. It is commonly thought that values influence our behavior; more specifically, a subset of six core values that directly influence ethical behavior. These core values, outlined by Martin Seligman in his book Authentic Happiness, are wisdom and knowledge, self-control, justice and fair guidance, transcendence, love and kindness, and courage and integrity. (Seligman, 2002) By adapting these core values to the workplace in theory and in practice, an administrator can create a corporate culture that promotes ethical decision making. Other steps administrators can take are to only bring into the organization employees who share these core values, to practice accountability and follow-up, and to fairly allocate organizational resources. (Kerns, 2012) It is not practical to rely solely on internal values to promote ethical decision making, however. So set behavioral standards should be in place to encourage managerial leaders and employees to follow their core values at all times. (Kerns, 2012)

Encouraging accountability and social responsibility in health care organizations is easier in a corporate culture that supports ethical decision making. In this environment, the core values of justice, love and kindness, and courage and integrity should already be present in employees and managerial leaders. There should be systems and procedures in place for accountability and follow-up checks. (Kerns, 2012) Administrators should stress the patient’s health interests as the primary concern of both the organization and the healthcare professionals, thereby making them partners in achieving the best care for their patients. All those involved in the care process, physicians, payors, and government agencies alike, should be made partners in holding patient care interests as the primary consideration. (Freund, 2010) With each branch of patient care concerned primarily with patient care, accountability checks and follow-up will happen more automatically and the sense of social responsibility will be reinforced across the organization.

References

Freund, L. (2010, January). Creating a Culture. Retrieved August 16, 2012, from ache.org: http://www.ache.org/abt_ache/JF10_Accountability.pdf

Kerns, C. P. (2012). Creating and Sustaining an Ethical Workplace Culture. Retrieved August 16, 2012, from Graziadio Business Review: http://gbr.pepperdine.edu/2010/08/Creating-and-Sustaining-an-Ethical-Workplace-Culture/#_edn1

Seligman, M. (2002). Authentic Happiness. New York: Free Press.