Consortium Ethics Program

The Consortium Ethics Program (CEP) is the collaborative continuing healthcare ethics educational program and regional resource network in western Pennsylvania.

The program provides members with a basic and advanced education in the major concepts and theoretical frameworks of bioethics and promotes clinical ethical problem-solving skills. In addition, the program fosters a mutually respectful environment where healthcare providers and payers, regardless of corporate affiliation, talk about similar experiences and dilemmas, and advise each other on possible resolutions.

Originally funded through the Vira I. Heinz Endowment from 1990-1996, the program has been self-supporting based on participation fees of its members and the contributions of sponsoring organizations since 1996. The program is co-sponsored by the University of Pittsburgh Department of General Internal Medicine and the Center for Bioethics and Health Law.

Goals

The most general goal of the CEP is to provide a cost-effective way to assist healthcare professionals, their institutions, and the local healthcare community in developing and sustaining an awareness and expertise in clinical healthcare ethics. This awareness and expertise will insure that present and emerging ethics needs will be met.

The CEP carries out these goals by:

Training a minimum of two representatives from each participating organization to become resource persons;
Assisting these representatives/”Resource Persons” in designing and implementing an “ethics plan” to meet the needs of their institutions;
Continuing to develop new methods of assisting regional healthcare institutions to address their long-term needs in clinical medical ethics as they become apparent.

More than 18 years of experience has shown that these goals are achieved. Other important objectives that are increasingly important for healthcare institutions are met as well. These include:

Assisting member institutions and their neighboring facilities to cooperatively address ethical issues that arise in the transfer of patients along a continuum of care;Addressing relevant Joint Commission standards, federal requirements such as HIPPA Privacy Rule, The Patient Self-Determination Act, and other standards in the field of healthcare ethics;
Helping members form, develop, and revitalize ethics committees, consultation services, or other appropriate mechanisms for conflict resolution.

Members

The CEP currently has 30 institutional members from hospitals throughout western Pennsylvania, as well as three individual members. Since 1990, the CEP has enrolled 57 healthcare institutions throughout western Pennsylvania and eastern Ohio, including acute-care hospitals, long-term care, and home health facilities. Recently, the CEP has expanded its membership to include third party payers, such as Highmark, Inc.

Over 400 “frontline” healthcare professionals have been educated by the CEP, including administrators, physicians, nurses, social workers, risk managers, pastoral care, and payer utilization reviewers.

Core Faculty

Rosa Lynn Pinkus, PhD

Director, Consortium Ethics Program

Andrew Thurman, JD, MPH

Interim Associate Director, Consortium Ethics Program

Robert Arnold, MD

University of Pittsburgh

David Barnard, PhD

University of Pittsburgh

Judith Black, MD, MHA

Highmark, Inc

Elizabeth Chaitin, DHCE