Emerging Experiences with Virtual Clinical Ethics Consultation: Case Studies from the United States and Malaysia.

AbstractThe COVID-19 pandemic has inspired numerous opportunities for telehealth implementation to meet diverse healthcare needs, including the use of virtual communication platforms to facilitate the growth of and access to clinical ethics consultation (CEC) services across the globe. Here we discuss the conceptualization and implementation of two different virtual CEC services that arose during the COVID-19 pandemic: the Clinical Ethics Malaysia COVID-19 Consultation Service and the Johns Hopkins Hospital Ethics Committee and Consultation Service. A common strength experienced by both platforms during virtual delivery included improved ability for local practitioners to address consultation needs for patient populations otherwise unable to access CEC services in their respective locations. Additionally, virtual platforms allowed for enhanced collaboration and sharing of expertise among ethics consultants. Both contexts encountered numerous challenges related to patient care delivery during the pandemic. The use of virtual technologies resulted in decreased personalization of patient-provider communication. We discuss these challenges with respect to contextual differences specific to each service and setting, including differences in CEC needs, sociocultural norms, resource availability, populations served, consultation service visibility, healthcare infrastructure, and funding disparities. Through lessons learned from a health system in the United States and a national service in Malaysia, we provide key recommendations for health practitioners and clinical ethics consultants to leverage virtual communication platforms to mitigate existing inequities in patient care delivery and increase capacity for CEC globally.

Urological Interconsultations to a Clinical Ethics Service in a Level-IV Hospital / Interconsultas urológicas a un Servicio de Ética Clínica en un hospital de IV nivel

Objetivo Los problemas éticos tienen una gran importancia en discusiones teóricas en la medicina, y este estudio tiene como objetivo caracterizar a los pacientes urológicos cuyos casos fueron motivos de consulta al Servicio de Ética Clínica (SEC) institucional de un hospital de IV nivel para comprender los dilemas éticos prevalentes en la práctica diaria de la urología y su abordaje. Materiales y Métodos Estudio descriptivo en el que se realizó una revisión retrospectiva de las historias clínicas de 20 pacientes urológicos interconsultados al SEC de un hospital de IV nivel. Se evaluó la frecuencia de las siguientes variables: diagnóstico, estadio funcional y clínico en el momento del diagnóstico, tiempo de evolución, tratamientos, y tipo de dilema ético motivo de la interconsulta. Resultados Desde enero de 2018, el SEC del Hospital Universitario San Ignacio ha respondido 1.123 interconsultas, y se vio un aumento significativo de las mismas en 2020 por razón de la pandemia de enfermedad por coronavirus 2019 (coronavirus disease 2019, COVID-19, en inglés). De estas interconsultas, solamente trece corresponden a pacientes con patología urológica de base, y siete, a compromiso urológico secundario. El diagnóstico más frecuente fue carcinoma de próstata en estadio IV, seguido de carcinoma urotelial avanzado. Predominó el tratamiento adecuado; solamente tres se diagnosticaron en ese momento, y no alcanzaron a recibir tratamiento. El principal dilema ético encontrado tuvo que ver con proporcionalidad al final de la vida, en dos casos, con respeto de la autonomía del paciente, incluida una solicitud de eutanasia. Conclusión El tamizaje establecido y los tratamientos efectivos tempranos se podrían reflejar en la baja frecuencia de situaciones clínicas extremas conducentes a la toma de decisiones al final de la vida, que serían dirigidas, entonces, ya sea a la reorientación del esfuerzo terapéutico, al plan de fin de vida, o a eutanasia.

Objective Ethical issues are extremely relevant in theoretical discussions in medicine, through the present article we intend to characterize patients with urologic conditions whose cases prompted consultations with the Clinical Ethics Service (CES) at a level-IV hospital in order to understand the prevalent ethical dilemmas encountered in the urological practice and their approach. Materials and Methods A descriptive study in which we performed a retrospective review of the clinical history of 20 urologic patients who were the subject of interconsultations with the CES of a level-IV hospital. We evaluated the frequency of the following variables: diagnosis, functional and clinical status at the time of the diagnosis, duration of disease evolution, and the type of ethical dilemma that prompted an interconsultation. Results Since January 2018, the CES at Hospital Universitario San Ignacio has received 1,123 interconsultation requests, and a significant increase in them has been observed due to the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic. Out of these interconsultations, only thirteen corresponded to patients with a urological diagnosis, and seven involved secondary urological compromise. The most frequent diagnosis was stage-IV prostate cancer, followed by advanced urothelial carcinoma. Proper treatment prevailed; only three cases were diagnosed at this stage, and they could not receive treatment. The main ethical dilemma involved treatment proportionality, in two cases, regarding patient autonomy, including one euthanasia request. Conclusion The established screening methods and effective early treatments are could lead to a low frequency of extreme clinical situations in which decision have to be made at the en

A two-center pilot study on the effects of clinical ethics support on coercive measures in psychiatry.

BACKGROUND: The use of formal coercion such as seclusion, mechanical restraint, and forced medication is one of the most challenging and complex issues in mental health care, on the clinical, the legal, and the ethical level. Clinical ethics support aims at assisting healthcare practitioners in determining the morally most justifiable course of action in these situations. However, the effectiveness of clinical ethics support has hardly been studied so far. METHODS: Monthly moral case deliberation (MCD) was implemented in two acute wards of two different psychiatric hospitals in Switzerland. Frequency and intensity of coercion was measured on ward level (npatients = 405), and the Moral Attentiveness Scale, Knowledge on Coercion Scale, and Staff Attitudes towards Coercion Scale were applied on healthcare practitioner level (nHP = 46). Pre-post-comparisons were conducted using multi-level modeling where appropriate. RESULTS: After implementation of MCD, formal coercion was less frequent (particularly seclusion, small effect size; 9.6 vs. 16.7%, p = .034, Cramér's V = .105) and less intense (particularly mechanical restraint, large effect size; 86.8 ± 45.3 vs. 14.5 ± 12.1 h, exact p = .019, r = -.74), and approval for coercive measures among healthcare practitioners was lower when controlling for the number of MCD sessions attended. CONCLUSIONS: Clinical ethics support such as MCD may be a hitherto underutilized service for the reduction of coercion, complementing existing strategies and programs. Implementing clinical ethics support may help improve quality of care for persons suffering from severe mental illness.

Disposition Decisions in Cases of Medical Complexity and Health Inequity.

The question of optimal disposition for children with complex medical and social circumstances has long challenged the well-intentioned clinician. The coronavirus disease 2019 pandemic created unique difficulties for patients, families, and health care providers, in addition to highlighting long-standing racial and socioeconomic inequities in health care. In pediatric hospitals, necessary public health measures such as visitor restrictions shifted many shared decision-making processes such as discharge planning from complicated to impossible. Here, we present the case of a medically complex adult (with a long-standing pediatric condition) whose surrogate decision-maker objected to discharge to a long-term care facility because of restrictions and risks associated with the coronavirus disease 2019 pandemic. We offer the commentary of experts in clinical ethics, intensive care, inpatient subacute care, and palliative care. Our discussion includes analysis of the ethical considerations involved in the case, concrete guidance on steps toward an ethically permissible discharge, and suggestions for how a health equity lens can improve communication and decision-making for families who are victims of systemic racism and economic discrimination.

Participatory Approach to Develop Evidence-Based Clinical Ethics Guidelines for the Care of COVID-19 Patients: A Mixed Method Study From Nepal.

During health emergencies such as the COVID-19 pandemic, healthcare workers face numerous ethical challenges while catering to the needs of patients in healthcare settings. Although the data recapitulating high-income countries ethics frameworks are available, the challenges faced by clinicians in resource-limited settings of low- and middle-income countries are not discussed widely due to a lack of baseline data or evidence. The Nepali healthcare system, which is chronically understaffed and underequipped, was severely affected by the COVID-19 pandemic in its capacity to manage health services and resources for needy patients, leading to ethical dilemmas and challenges during clinical practice. This study aimed to develop a standard guideline that would address syndemic ethical dilemmas during clinical care of COVID-19 patients who are unable to afford standard-of-care. A mixed method study was conducted between February and June of 2021 in 12 government designated COVID-19 treatment hospitals in central Nepal. The draft guideline was discussed among the key stakeholders in the pandemic response in Nepal. The major ethical dilemmas confronted by the study participants (50 healthcare professionals providing patient care at COVID-19 treatment hospitals) could be grouped into five major pillars of ethical clinical practice: rational allocation of medical resources, updated treatment protocols that guide clinical decisions, standard-of-care regardless of patient's economic status, effective communication among stakeholders for prompt patient care, and external factors such as political and bureaucratic interference affecting ethical practice. This living clinical ethics guideline, which has been developed based on the local evidence and case stories of frontline responders, is expected to inform the policymakers as well as the decision-makers positioned at the concerned government units. These ethics guidelines could be endorsed with revisions by the concerned regulatory authorities for the use during consequent waves of COVID-19 and other epidemics that may occur in the future. Other countries affected by the pandemic could conduct similar studies to explore ethical practices in the local clinical and public health context.

Relational ethical approaches to the COVID-19 pandemic.

Key ethical challenges for healthcare workers arising from the COVID-19 pandemic are identified: isolation and social distancing, duty of care and fair access to treatment. The paper argues for a relational approach to ethics which includes solidarity, relational autonomy, duty, equity, trust and reciprocity as core values. The needs of the poor and socially disadvantaged are highlighted. Relational autonomy and solidarity are explored in relation to isolation and social distancing. Reciprocity is discussed with reference to healthcare workers' duty of care and its limits. Priority setting and access to treatment raise ethical issues of utility and equity. Difficult ethical dilemmas around triage, do not resuscitate decisions, and withholding and withdrawing treatment are discussed in the light of recently published guidelines. The paper concludes with the hope for a wider discussion of relational ethics and a glimpse of a future after the pandemic has subsided.

Dying individuals and suffering populations: applying a population-level bioethics lens to palliative care in humanitarian contexts: before, during and after the COVID-19 pandemic.

BACKGROUND: Humanitarian crises and emergencies, events often marked by high mortality, have until recently excluded palliative care-a specialty focusing on supporting people with serious or terminal illness or those nearing death. In the COVID-19 pandemic, palliative care has received unprecedented levels of societal attention. Unfortunately, this has not been enough to prevent patients dying alone, relatives not being able to say goodbye and palliative care being used instead of intensive care due to resource limitations. Yet global guidance was available. In 2018, the WHO released a guide on 'Integrating palliative care and symptom relief into the response to humanitarian emergencies and crises'-the first guidance on the topic by an international body. AIMS: This paper argues that while a landmark document, the WHO guide took a narrowly clinical bioethics perspective and missed crucial moral dilemmas. We argue for adding a population-level bioethics lens, which draws forth complex moral dilemmas arising from the fact that groups having differential innate and acquired resources in the context of social and historical determinants of health. We discuss dilemmas concerning: limitations of material and human resources; patient prioritisation; euthanasia; and legacy inequalities, discrimination and power imbalances. IMPLICATIONS: In parts of the world where opportunity for preparation still exists, and as countries emerge from COVID-19, planners must consider care for the dying. Immediate steps to support better resolutions to ethical dilemmas of the provision of palliative care in humanitarian and emergency contexts will require honest debate; concerted research effort; and international, national and local ethical guidance.

COVID-19 underscores the important role of Clinical Ethics Committees in Africa.

BACKGROUND: The COVID-19 pandemic has magnified pre-existing challenges in healthcare in Africa. Long-standing health inequities, embedded in the continent over centuries, have been laid bare and have raised complex ethical dilemmas. While there are very few clinical ethics committees (CECs) in Africa, the demand for such services exists and has increased during the COVID-19 pandemic. The views of African healthcare professionals or bioethicists on the role of CECs in Africa have not been explored or documented previously. In this study, we aim to explore such perspectives, as well as the challenges preventing the establishment of CECs in Africa. METHODS: Twenty healthcare professionals and bioethicists from Africa participated in this qualitative study that utilized in-depth semi-structured interviews with open-ended questions. Themes were identified through thematic analysis of interviews and open-ended responses. RESULTS: Kenya and South Africa are the only countries on the continent with formal established CECs. The following themes emerged from this qualitative study: (1) Lack of formal CECs and resolution of ethical dilemmas; (2) Role of CECs during COVID-19; (3) Ethical dilemmas presented to CECs pre-COVID-19; (4) Lack of awareness of CECs; (5) Lack of qualified bioethicists or clinical ethicists; (6) Limited resources to establish CECs; (7) Creating interest in CECs and networking. CONCLUSIONS: This study illustrates the importance of clinical ethics education among African HCPs and bioethicists, more so now when COVID-19 has posed a host of clinical and ethical challenges to public and private healthcare systems. The challenges and barriers identified will inform the establishment of CECs or clinical ethics consultation services (CESs) in the region. The study results have triggered an idea for the creation of a network of African CECs.

Challenging misconceptions about clinical ethics support during COVID-19 and beyond: a legal update and future considerations.

The pace of change and, indeed, the sheer number of clinical ethics committees (not to be confused with research ethics committees) has accelerated during the COVID-19 pandemic. Committees were formed to support healthcare professionals and to operationalise, interpret and compensate for gaps in national and professional guidance. But as the role of clinical ethics support becomes more prominent and visible, it becomes ever more important to address gaps in the support structure and misconceptions as to role and remit. The recent case of Great Ormond Street Hospital for Children NHS Foundation Trust v MX, FX and X ([2020] EWHC 1958 (Fam), [21]-[23] and [58]) has highlighted the importance of patient/family representation at clinical ethics committee meetings. The court viewed these meetings as making decisions about such treatment. We argue that this misunderstands the role of ethics support, with treatment decisions remaining with the clinical team and those providing their consent. The considered review by clinical ethics committees of the moral issues surrounding complex treatment decisions is not a matter of determining a single ethical course of action. In this article, we consider current legal understandings of clinical ethics committees, explore current concepts of ethics support and suggest how they may evolve, considering the various mechanisms of the inclusion of patients and their representatives in ethics meetings which is not standard in the UK.

Reflective disequilibrium: a critical evaluation of the complete lives framework for healthcare rationing.

One prominent view in recent literature on resource allocation is Persad, Emanuel and Wertheimer's complete lives framework for the rationing of lifesaving healthcare interventions (CLF). CLF states that we should prioritise the needs of individuals who have had less opportunity to experience the events that characterise a complete life. Persad et al argue that their system is the product of a successful process of reflective equilibrium-a philosophical methodology whereby theories, principles and considered judgements are balanced with each other and revised until we achieve an acceptable coherence between our various beliefs. Yet I argue that many of the principles and intuitions underpinning CLF conflict with each other, and that Persad et al have failed to achieve an acceptable coherence between them. I focus on three tensions in particular: the conflict between the youngest first principle and Persad et al's investment refinement; the conflict between current medical need and a concern for lifetime equality; and the tension between adopting an objective measure of complete lives and accommodating for differences in life narratives.

Who Gets the Last Bed? A Discrete-Choice Experiment Examining General Population Preferences for Intensive Care Bed Prioritization in a Pandemic.

OBJECTIVE: To explore the key patient attributes important to members of the Australian general population when prioritizing patients for the final intensive care unit (ICU) bed in a pandemic over-capacity scenario. METHODS: A discrete-choice experiment administered online asked respondents (N = 306) to imagine the COVID-19 caseload had surged and that they were lay members of a panel tasked to allocate the final ICU bed. They had to decide which patient was more deserving for each of 14 patient pairs. Patients were characterized by 5 attributes: age, occupation, caregiver status, health prior to being infected, and prognosis. Respondents were randomly allocated to one of 7 sets of 14 pairs. Multinomial, mixed logit, and latent class models were used to model the observed choice behavior. RESULTS: A latent class model with 3 classes was found to be the most informative. Two classes valued active decision making and were slightly more likely to choose patients with caregiving responsibilities over those without. One of these classes valued prognosis most strongly, with a decreasing probability of bed allocation for those 65 y and older. The other valued both prognosis and age highly, with decreasing probability of bed allocation for those 45 y and older and a slight preference in favor of frontline health care workers. The third class preferred more random decision-making strategies. CONCLUSIONS: For two-thirds of those sampled, prognosis, age, and caregiving responsibilities were the important features when making allocation decisions, although the emphasis varies. The remainder appeared to choose randomly.

The Value of Triage during Periods of Intense COVID-19 Demand: Simulation Modeling Study.

BACKGROUND: During the COVID-19 pandemic, many intensive care units have been overwhelmed by unprecedented levels of demand. Notwithstanding ethical considerations, the prioritization of patients with better prognoses may support a more effective use of available capacity in maximizing aggregate outcomes. This has prompted various proposed triage criteria, although in none of these has an objective assessment been made in terms of impact on number of lives and life-years saved. DESIGN: An open-source computer simulation model was constructed for approximating the intensive care admission and discharge dynamics under triage. The model was calibrated from observational data for 9505 patient admissions to UK intensive care units. To explore triage efficacy under various conditions, scenario analysis was performed using a range of demand trajectories corresponding to differing nonpharmaceutical interventions. RESULTS: Triaging patients at the point of expressed demand had negligible effect on deaths but reduces life-years lost by up to 8.4% (95% confidence interval: 2.6% to 18.7%). Greater value may be possible through "reverse triage", that is, promptly discharging any patient not meeting the criteria if admission cannot otherwise be guaranteed for one who does. Under such policy, life-years lost can be reduced by 11.7% (2.8% to 25.8%), which represents 23.0% (5.4% to 50.1%) of what is operationally feasible with no limit on capacity and in the absence of improved clinical treatments. CONCLUSIONS: The effect of simple triage is limited by a tradeoff between reduced deaths within intensive care (due to improved outcomes) and increased deaths resulting from declined admission (due to lower throughput given the longer lengths of stay of survivors). Improvements can be found through reverse triage, at the expense of potentially complex ethical considerations.

Invisible epidemics: ethics and asymptomatic infection.

Interactions between microbes and human hosts can lead to a wide variety of possible outcomes including benefits to the host, asymptomatic infection, disease (which can be more or less severe), and/or death. Whether or not they themselves eventually develop disease, asymptomatic carriers can often transmit disease-causing pathogens to others. This phenomenon has a range of ethical implications for clinical medicine, public health, and infectious disease research. The implications of asymptomatic infection are especially significant in situations where, and/or to the extent that, the microbe in question is transmissible, potentially harmful, and/or untreatable. This article reviews the history and concept of asymptomatic infection, and relevant ethical issues associated with this phenomenon. It illustrates the role and ethical significance of asymptomatic infection in outbreaks, epidemics, and pandemics-including recent crises involving drug resistance, Zika, and Covid19. Serving as the Introduction to this Special Issue of Monash Bioethics Review, it also provides brief summaries of the other articles comprising this collection.

Ethics of clinical research and practice in India during the Covid-19 pandemic.

Covid-19 has been one of the worst public health calamities faced by humankind in over a century. As of July 23, 2020, there have been 15,633,159 confirmed cases and 635,422 deaths reported, worldwide (1). We are six months into the pandemic, and yet we know little about the disease. The role of medicines is far from optimal, and vaccines are still under trials. Therefore, we have little to defend ourselves against this novel virus.

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What Matters? Palliative Care, Ethics, and the COVID-19 Pandemic.

As is often the case in clinical ethics, the discourse in COVID-19 has focused primarily on difficult and controversial decision-making junctures such as how to decide who gets access to intensive care resources if demand outstrips supply. However, the lived experience of COVID-19 raises less controversial but arguably more profound moral questions around what it means to look after each other through the course of the pandemic and how this translates in care for the dying. This piece explores the interface between the pandemic, ethics, and the role of palliative care. We argue that the ethical discourse should be broader, and that the principles that underly the discipline of palliative care provide a solid ethical foundation for the care of all patients through the coronavirus pandemic.

Mistrust and inconsistency during COVID-19: considerations for resource allocation guidelines that prioritise healthcare workers.

As the USA contends with another surge in COVID-19 cases, hospitals may soon need to answer the unresolved question of who lives and dies when ventilator demand exceeds supply. Although most triage policies in the USA have seemingly converged on the use of clinical need and benefit as primary criteria for prioritisation, significant differences exist between institutions in how to assign priority to patients with identical medical prognoses: the so-called 'tie-breaker' situations. In particular, one's status as a frontline healthcare worker (HCW) has been a proposed criterion for prioritisation in the event of a tie. This article outlines two major grounds for reconsidering HCW prioritisation. The first recognises trust as an indispensable element of clinical care and mistrust as a hindrance to any public health strategy against the virus, thus raising concerns about the outward appearance of favouritism. The second considers the ways in which proponents of HCW prioritisation deviate from the very 'ethics frameworks' that often preface triage policies and serve to guide resource allocation-a rhetorical strategy that may undermine the very ethical foundations on which triage policies stand. By appealing to trust and consistency, we re-examine existing arguments in favour of HCW prioritisation and provide a more tenable justification for adjudicating on tie-breaker events during crisis standards of care.