The clinical encounter between providers and patients is insufficient: most factors influencing health outcomes occur outside the clinic. Community Health Needs Assessments address this insufficiency via collaboration between hospitals and… Click to show full abstract
The clinical encounter between providers and patients is insufficient: most factors influencing health outcomes occur outside the clinic. Community Health Needs Assessments address this insufficiency via collaboration between hospitals and the communities they serve to address systemic sociological-economic variables impacting health outcomes. Considering this, why are Health Care Ethics Consultation (HCEC) services limited to the clinical setting? We can cultivate better ethics outcomes by addressing systemic sociological-economic factors that cause recurring ethics issues in the hospital. In this article, I argue for the need for a Community Ethics Needs Assessment (CENA). CENA is a novel concept; thus, this article is exploratory. I argue for the necessity of a CENA and, more importantly, outline what methodology a CENA would use to both identify and address an ethics need.
               
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