Ethical Guidance on Family Caregiving, Support, and Visitation in Hospitals and Residential Health Care Facilities, Including During Public Health Emergencies: an American College of Physicians Position Paper.

Public health emergencies create challenges for the accommodation of visitors to hospitals and other care facilities. To mitigate the spread of COVID-19 early in the pandemic, health care institutions implemented severe visitor restrictions, many remaining in place more than 2 years, producing serious unintended harms. Visitor restrictions have been associated with social isolation and loneliness, worse physical and mental health outcomes, impaired or delayed decision-making, and dying alone. Patients with disabilities, communication challenges, and cognitive or psychiatric impairments are particularly vulnerable without caregiver presence. This paper critically examines the justifications for, and harms imposed by, visitor restrictions during the COVID-19 pandemic and offers ethical guidance on family caregiving, support, and visitation during public health emergencies. Visitation policies must be guided by ethical principles; incorporate the best available scientific evidence; recognize the invaluable roles of caregivers and loved ones; and involve relevant stakeholders, including physicians, who have an ethical duty to advocate for patients and families during public health crises. Visitor policies should be promptly revised as new evidence emerges regarding benefits and risks in order to prevent avoidable harms.

American College of Physicians Ethical Guidance for Electronic Patient-Physician Communication: Aligning Expectations.

Communication is critical to strong patient-physician relationships and high-quality health care. In recent years, advances in health information technology have altered how patients and doctors interact and communicate. Increasingly, e-communication outside of in-person clinical encounters occurs in many ways, including through e-mail, patient-portals, texting, and messaging applications. This American College of Physicians (ACP) position paper provides ethics and professionalism guidance for these forms of e-communication to help maintain trust in patient-physician relationships and the profession and alignment between patient and physician expectations.

Physician Impairment and Rehabilitation: Reintegration Into Medical Practice While Ensuring Patient Safety: A Position Paper From the American College of Physicians.

Physician impairment, the inability to carry out patient care responsibilities safely and effectively, is a problem of functioning. However, the presence or treatment of a potentially impairing illness or other condition does not necessarily imply impairment. This American College of Physicians position paper examines the professional duties and principles that should guide the response of colleagues and the profession to physician impairment. The physician should be rehabilitated and reintegrated into medical practice whenever possible without compromising patient safety. At the same time, physicians have a duty to seek help when they are unable to provide safe care. When identifying and assisting colleagues who might be impaired, physicians should act on collegial concern as well as ethical and legal guidelines that require reporting of behavior that puts patients at risk. Health care institutions and the profession should support practice environments in which patient safety is prioritized and physician wellness and well-being are addressed. Physician health programs should be committed to best practices that safeguard patient safety and the rights of physician-patients.

American College of Physicians Ethics Manual: Seventh Edition.

Medicine, law, and social values are not static. Reexamining the ethical tenets of medicine and their application in new circumstances is a necessary exercise. The seventh edition of the American College of Physicians (ACP) Ethics Manual covers emerging issues in medical ethics and revisits older ones that are still very pertinent. It reflects on many of the ethical tensions in medicine and attempts to shed light on how existing principles extend to emerging concerns. In addition, by reiterating ethical principles that have provided guidance in resolving past ethical problems, the Manual may help physicians avert future problems. The Manual is not a substitute for the experience and integrity of individual physicians, but it may serve as a reminder of the shared duties of the medical profession.

Hidden Curricula, Ethics, and Professionalism: Optimizing Clinical Learning Environments in Becoming and Being a Physician: A Position Paper of the American College of Physicians.

Much of what is formally taught in medicine is about the knowledge, skills, and behaviors required of a physician, including how to express compassion and respect for patients at the bedside. What is learned, however, includes not only admirable qualities but also behaviors and qualities that are inconsistent with ethics and professionalism. Positive role models may reinforce the character and values the profession seeks to cultivate; negative ones directly contradict classroom lessons and expectations of patients, society, and medical educators. These positive and negative lessons, which are embedded in organizational structure and culture, are the hidden curricula conveyed in medical schools, residency programs, hospitals, and clinics. This position paper from the American College of Physicians focuses on ethics, professionalism, and the hidden curriculum. It provides strategies for revealing what is hidden to foster the development of reflective and resilient lifelong learners who embody professionalism and clinicians who are, and are perceived as, positive role models. Making the hidden visible and the implicit explicit helps to create a culture reflecting medicine's core values.

Ethical Issues in the Design and Implementation of Population Health Programs.

Spurred on by recent health care reforms and the Triple Aim's goals of improving population health outcomes, reducing health care costs, and improving the patient experience of care, emphasis on population health is increasing throughout medicine. Population health has the potential to improve patient care and health outcomes for individual patients. However, specific population health activities may not be in every patient's best interest in every circumstance, which can create ethical tensions for individual physicians and other health care professionals. Because individual medical professionals remain committed primarily to the best interests of individual patients, physicians have a unique role to play in ensuring population health supports this ethical obligation. Using widely recognized principles of medical ethics-nonmaleficence/beneficence, respect for persons, and justice-this article describes the ethical issues that may arise in contemporary population health programs and how to manage them. Attending to these principles will improve the design and implementation of population health programs and help maintain trust in the medical profession.

Ethical Implications of the Electronic Health Record: In the Service of the Patient.

Electronic health records (EHRs) provide benefits for patients, physicians, and clinical teams, but also raise ethical questions. Navigating how to provide care in the digital age requires an assessment of the impact of the EHR on patient care and the patient-physician relationship. EHRs should facilitate patient care and, as an essential component of that care, support the patient-physician relationship. Billing, regulatory, research, documentation, and administrative functions determined by the operational requirements of health care systems, payers, and others have resulted in EHRs that are better able to satisfy such external functions than to ensure that patient care needs are met. The profession has a responsibility to identify and address this mismatch. This position paper by the American College of Physicians (ACP) Ethics, Professionalism and Human Rights Committee does not address EHR design, user variability, meaningful use, or coding requirements and other government and payer mandates per se; these issues are discussed in detail in ACP's Clinical Documentation policy. This paper focuses on EHRs and the patient-physician relationship and patient care; patient autonomy, privacy and confidentiality; and professionalism, clinical reasoning and training. It explores emerging ethical challenges and concerns for and raised by physicians across the professional lifespan, whose ongoing input is crucial to the development and use of information technology that truly serves patients.

Policy recommendations to guide the use of telemedicine in primary care settings: an American College of Physicians position paper.

Telemedicine-the use of technology to deliver care at a distance-is rapidly growing and can potentially expand access for patients, enhance patient-physician collaboration, improve health outcomes, and reduce medical costs. However, the potential benefits of telemedicine must be measured against the risks and challenges associated with its use, including the absence of the physical examination, variation in state practice and licensing regulations, and issues surrounding the establishment of the patient-physician relationship. This paper offers policy recommendations for the practice and use of telemedicine in primary care and reimbursement policies associated with telemedicine use. The positions put forward by the American College of Physicians highlight a meaningful approach to telemedicine policies and regulations that will have lasting positive effects for patients and physicians.

Health policy basics: the Physician Payment Sunshine Act and the Open Payments program.

The Open Payments program is a government initiative through which financial relationships between applicable industries and covered physicians or teaching hospitals are publicly reported. The program does not assess these relationships but rather facilitates transparency and allows stakeholders to use this information in making informed decisions. This article outlines the program and its goals, reviews its requirements and when they go into effect, examines the implications for physicians and their patients, and makes recommendations to help physicians and teaching hospitals prepare for its implementation.