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APHA Scientific Session and Event Listing

Yi-Hsin Elsa Hsu and Mei-ling Sheu. School of Health Care Administration, Taipei Medical University, 250 Wu-Hsin Street, Taipei, Taiwan, 886 2 2736 1661 ext: 3610, elsahsu@tmu.edu.tw

How do ethical guidelines help one identify and act on the morally correct choice is always grappled by philosophers. In the 21st century health care administrators have formally sought to clarify and establish ethical standards. In Asia, very little report and research were done on the subject of ethics in health care administration. The National Health Insurance Program in Taiwan has been launched since 1995, which successfully accomplished high satisfaction rate (76.6% in 2004) and low total health expenditure (only 6.26% GDP in 2003). The Bureau reimbursed providers mainly based on the fee-for-service before 1998, however, it started hospitals global budget payment system in 2002 to contain cost. This special insurance environment raises great external influences on ethics in health care administration in addition to the organizational level influences. The ethical issue is into urgent especially after global budget payment system was implemented as measures to control the medical cost expenditure. The objectives of this study are to explore the perception, awareness, and the attitude of CEO's in hospitals in Taiwan towards ethics in health care administration. Codes of Ethics promulgated by the American College of Health Care Administrators and other professional associations were used to develop our principles of investigation. All CEO's in all 590 Taiwan hospitals will be surveyed in April, 2006. Our study adds to previous literature by demonstrating a managerial perspective toward healthcare administration ethics in a significant country in Asia, and indicating the acceptance of the value of ethics in health care administration.

Learning Objectives:

• Recognize what a country and hospital CEO’s might need to pay for a low-cost and high-satisfaction insurance system.
• Reconstruct an insurance payment system bearing healthcare administration ethics and policy ethics in mind.
• Develop curriculum of healthcare administration ethics and policy ethics in healthcare administration graduate institutes.

Keywords: Ethics, Hospitals

Presenting author's disclosure statement:

Any relevant financial relationships? No