Ethics

What is Ethics?

Ethics relates to what we should or should not do.

At Osler, our ethics team can:

• help you share what matters most to you
• identify the values, laws, policies and guidelines relevant to a particular health care decision
• assist you in making difficult decisions about your health care, or the care of a loved one
• answer your questions about Medical Assistance in Dying (MAiD)
• support patients, families, staff and physicians in ethical decision making

Making health care decisions for yourself or someone else can be challenging. Our ethics team can help.

Our Ethics team

• Dr. Paula Chidwick, Director, Research and Ethics
• Dr. Jill Oliver, Community Ethicist
• Dr. Angel Petropanagos, Quality Improvement Ethicist

We are also pleased to offer a Clinical Ethics Internship Program each year.

How we support ethical decision making

We offer confidential consultations for patients, families, staff, and physicians. We also have a variety of tools and frameworks to support ethical decision making from boardroom to bedside and in the community. Please contact us at 905-494-2120 ext.56630 or ethics@williamoslerhs.ca if you would like more information about our ethical tools and frameworks.

How we're improving quality care

Our team of ethicists works in a dedicated Ethics Quality Improvement (EQI) Lab and is committed to person-centered, safe, effective and equitable care. Their quality improvement projects aim to reduce mistakes related to health care consent, making it easier for patients to get only the care they need and want.

Here are two Accreditation Canada leading practices and award-winning examples of our ethics quality improvement projects:

Checklist to meeting Ethical and Legal Obligations (ChELO)

This project helps health care teams learn about what matters to their patients. By using a simple checklist, care providers can identify a patient's correct substitute decision maker and ask about the patient's wishes, values and beliefs. This important information helps support truly people-centred decision making. Learn more about ChELO.

Prevention of Error-based Transfers (PoET)

This project supports residents in long-term care by:

• better aligning the home's practices and decision making with Ontario's Health Care Consent Act
• helping the people in long-term care better understand their role in health care decision making
• bringing residents' wishes, values and beliefs to the centre of decision making to help ensure they get the care that they want and can benefit from – and don't get unwanted or non-beneficial care.

By learning about what residents want, PoET has supported an overall reduction in unwanted and unnecessary transfers from long-term care to hospital. Learn more about PoET.