ABSTRACT
Why is sustainability an ethical issue? What is the place of sustainability in a healthcare leader’s professional ethics? The purpose of Chapter 12 is to help leaders understand the ethics surrounding sustainability in healthcare by describing what is at stake if leaders operate according to the traditional, unsustainable healthcare paradigm.
200The mission of healthcare organizations argues for sustainable management to improve the triple-bottom-line goals of community health. Sustainability is a foundational element of every institution’s missional commitment to its community and this is especially true for hospitals, which are fundamentally institutions of health and healing.
Sustainability has a special relationship with healthcare ethics, with the health of the community and with the many roles of healthcare organizations within the communities they serve. Values associated with sustainability are part of the healthcare leader’s commitment to professionalism. Through sustainability, hospitals face opportunities to explicitly exercise their commitments to prevention and wellness, thereby strengthening the compact between hospitals and the communities they serve.
Leaders who shy away from their sustainability responsibilities are effectively shunning evidence-based management best practices that demonstrate short- and long-term cost savings as well as improved environmental and population health management. Now that successful business leaders in other industries are realizing the benefits of sustainability as a leadership value, the time has arrived for healthcare leaders to embrace a holistic leadership ethic.
