Ethics in Healthcare (Abstract)

In the United States there were 6,210 hospitals as of 2019 (Pollack, 2019). Providing food to patients, visitors, and staff in a typical hospital totals an average of 1.7 million meals every year (Redfield, 2014). Although we might assume healthcare centers and hospitals would negotiate distributor contracts that stipulate food producers utilize ethical business and farming practices, this is not always the case. According to the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) many hospitals are deficient in this area (Redfield, 2014).

A hospitals food purchasing conduct can have dire consequences on human and planetary health. This paper will attempt to identify the controversial “wicked” problems in traditional supply chain food procurement patterns in the healthcare environment that both support and interfere with an ethical, sustainable, and socially just food system as well as a patient’s right to choose prescribed or offered food options while hospitalized. This will allow for “best practices for public processes of deliberation, debate, and social learning” (Norton, 2015, p. 39), which can lead to “developing more effective processes that can lead to an emergent concept of sustainability” (Norton, 2015, p. 39) in the healthcare food system. Overcoming anticipated objections and finding virtuous solutions by creating an industry where the food procurement culture and food values are “reflective about the things that really matter” (Thompson, 2015, p. 15) will be prescribed in an effort to making our healthcare food systems operate more sustainably for all the beings that interact with it along the way.

Norton, B. G. (2015). Sustainable Values Sustainable Change - A Guide to Environmental Decision Making. Chicago, IL: The University of Chicago Press.

Pollack, R. (2019). Fast Facts on U.S. Hospitals, 2019 | AHA. Retrieved February 10, 2019, from https://www.aha.org/statistics/fast-facts-us-hospitals

Redfield, R. (2014, August). Creating Healthier Hospital Food, Beverage and Physical Activity Environments: Forming Teams, Engaging Stakeholders, Conducting Assessments and Evaluations [Scholarly project]. In Center for Disease Control. Retrieved February 10, 2019, from https://www.cdc.gov/obesity/hospital-toolkit/pdf/creating-healthier-hospital-food-beverage-pa.pdf

Thompson, P. B. (2015). From Field to Fork: Food Ethics for Everyone. New York, NY: Oxford Scholarship Online.

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