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Organizational Ethics Programs and the Law

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 April 2000

BETHANY SPIELMAN
BETHANY SPIELMAN
Affiliation:
Bethany Spielman, Ph.D., J.D., M.H.A., is Associate Professor and Director of Medical Ethics program at Southern Illinois University of Medicine, Adjunct Professor of Law at Southern Illinois University School of Law, and ethics consultant for Memorial Medical Center in Springfield, Illinois
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Abstract

Max Weber, the grandfather of organizational theory, recognized the close association between health care organizations and law. When he introduced the concept of a legal–rational bureaucracy, he used hospitals and clinics to illustrate it. Today, there is little doubt that healthcare organizations are “law-saturated,” if not always fully compliant with the law. Like Weber's legal–rational bureaucracies, healthcare organizations have highly formalized rules and procedures. They pay a great deal of attention to legal criteria in decisionmaking, and some have entire departments devoted to legal risk management.

Type
SPECIAL SECTION: ISSUES IN ORGANIZATION ETHICS AND HEALTHCARE
Information
Cambridge Quarterly of Healthcare Ethics , Volume 9 , Issue 2 , April 2000 , pp. 218 - 229
Copyright
© 2000 Cambridge University Press

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