A source of support. An ethics committee helps nurses do the right thing.

In 1984 Archbishop Bergan Mercy Hospital, Omaha, established a nursing bioethics committee to increase its professional nurses' knowledge of applied ethics. The committee's original objectives were to (1) help nurses assume the authority and responsibility to make ethical judgements, (2) influence the development of policies on healthcare standards, (3) serve as a resource to clinicians and managers responsible for delivering high-quality nursing care, (4) develop systemwide support for nurses' participation in ethical decision making, and (5) serve as a source from which nurses could be selected to the hospital's Human Values Committee. The bioethics committee established a formal mechanism to ensure that nurses receive support when they take the initiative in ethical decisions. The nurse and the committee member from his or her department organize a "community of concern" consisting of all persons necessary to address the essential ethical components of the issue at hand.