Leadership Ethics: Utilitarianism “Balancing Patient Needs and Business Imperatives”, Essay Example

Running a healthcare practice requires a blend of providing for the patients’ needs as well as running a good business.  Both must be considered high priorities, because if one aspect is neglected, this could lead to the jeopardy of both. Making good business, patient needs and professional goals may in times come in conflict; this is when ethical decisions need to be made.

Utilitarianism is guided by the principle of utility or the “greatest happiness principle” (Lachman, 2006). This is where one bases his or her actions according to what would benefit the majority. Or, which action will produce the greatest amount of happiness for the greater number of people. When it comes to healthcare and utilitarianism, one must measure out what the resources which are present, these are time, medication and finances, we must think of these in terms of the greatest need, and which action will benefit the most given these resources (Lachman, 2006). An action can be justified in giving either the most amount of pleasure or the least amount of pain. One must first evaluate his or her commitment in society, and when it comes to healthcare, this is adhering to the needs of patients.

According to Buddhism, economists suffer from a blindness in which they assume that their science is absolute and with invariable truths. This cannot coincide with healthcare when you look at it through business perspectives. When faced with a problem, such as choosing between a patient’s life, or the hospital’s resources, one cannot claim that economics has the answer, because then we would quickly opt to choose the hospital over the patient, because in doing so, we would gain more than we would lose. Buddhism identifies three functions of work, these are: to utilize and develop faculties, to enable one to overcome his ego-centeredness by joining with other people in a common task, and to bring forth goods and services necessary for existence. To be able to work without hating oneself; we should get rid of all evil, which is mentioned as the lack of compassion, however this is contradicted by the statement that we should also get rid of soul-destroying attachments. We must look at patients in the line of compassion, however not so much that it blinds us from judgment.  Buddhism requires us to focus on the structure of things, and think in the matter of people, not in the matter of goods. The structure would be the hospital or practice. These are structured in terms of multiplicities of small units, these small units are the patients. What we should do collectively is considered, and the focus should be on the outcome, not the act itself. Thus, to benefit the majority of people in healthcare, we must of course focus on healthcare as a business. And, every business needs money to operate. Business would be important so that we can tend to patients’ needs, and there are some needs which may only affect the happiness of the few. For there to be an efficient way of delivering healthcare, we must look in terms of the hospital or practice as a business. This way, the hospital can serve its duty to society which is to help those in need of the service.

The book The Prince speaks a balance between being feared and escaping hatred. Whilst people would rather be considered kind than cruel, kindness may be misused, and cruelty may be seen as a tool to keep his subjects in line. It is important to keep one’s word, that when you cannot keep any promises, then you should not have done so in the first place. The book states that the many have only one to reply on, and this gives that one leader the responsibility to make decisions, these decisions should be made with boldness and gravity. When this is done, then no conspiracies shall be made of them. Machiavelli states that if there is justification to take someone’s life, and then by all means do so, because men are quicker to forget the death of a father. This is of course not to be taken in literal context when it comes to health care. The utilitarian view of ethics claims to focus on the outcome, and when the decision is regarding the debate of high quality care vs. the cost of delivering it, one must think of what will benefit the majority. And from this view of thinking, the best to do would be to secure profit. When it comes to end-of-life care, utilizing expensive medicines to prolong life would not be of utilitarian standards because it does not benefit the majority, it will only bring happiness to a small amount of individuals, and the end outcome will still be death. Thus, going straight to hospice would be the answer.

References

Lachman, V.D. (2006). Applied ethics in nursing. New York: Springer.