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Healthcare ethics consultation is a service provided to help patients, families, surrogates, healthcare providers and other involved parties address uncertainty or conflict regarding value-laden issues that emerge in healthcare. Ethics consultants must possess certain skills, knowledge and character traits to offer assistance competently.

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Ethics consultants must have a variety to basic skills, which are used in straight forward cases and advanced skills for more complex situations.

• Skills necessary to identify the nature of the value uncertainty or conflict that underlies the need for ethics consultation
• Skills necessary to analyzed the value uncertainty or conflict
• The ability to facilitate formal and informal meetings and build moral consensus
• The ability to utilize institutional structures and resources to facilitate the implementation of the chosen option
• The ability to document consults and elicit feedback regarding the process of consultation so that it can be evaluated
• The ability to listen well to communicate interest, respect, support and empathy to involved parties
• The ability to educate involved parties on the ethical dimension of the case
• The ability to elicit the moral views of involved parties
• The ability to represent the views of involved parties to others
• The ability to enable the involved parties to communicate effectively
• The ability to recognize and attend to various relational barriers to communication

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Healthcare ethics consultants require basic knowledge in some areas and more detailed understanding of topics in others. All consultants should be aware of their limitations so that they know when they need to seek out those who might have specialized knowledge.

• Moral reasoning and ethical theory as it relates to ethics consultation
• Bioethical issues and concepts that typically emerge in ethics consultation
• Healthcare systems and clinical contexts as they relate to ethics consultation
• Healthcare institution in which the consultants work, as it relates to ethics consultation
• Local healthcare institution’s policies relevant for ethics consultation
• Beliefs and perspectives of patient and staff population where ethics consultation is performed
• Relevant codes of ethics, professional conduct and guidelines of accrediting organization as they relate to ethics consultation
• Health law relevant to ethics consultation

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