Publish Ethics Committee Decisions - Part 2

Tarris Rosell over at Practical Bioethics has some good comments on my still underdeveloped proposal to publish ethics committee opinions.  

First, there certainly already is publication of ethics committee cases.  The deliberation and outcome of cases are regularly recounted and described in bioethics and medical journal articles.  So, I admit it is not as though we have zero insight into the functioning of ethics committee recommendation / decision making.  Still, my proposal would significantly expand the "database" of available cases.

Second, Tarris is correct that most committees do not really much engage in case consultation (though perhaps much more retrospective than prospective).  That is handled at the individual or small team level.  Nevertheless, a few cases do reach the full ethics committee.  I think that, at a minimum, these cases should be published.  This is especially, though not exclusively, true for that subset of situations (sometimes authorized by law in New York, Texas...) in which the ethics committee issues a non-advisory, binding decision.

Third, I recognize that even when cases are considered by a full committee, the only written outcome is typically just a chart note or email.  So, the objection states, there is not really much to publish.  But this presumes that the only benefit of publication is to promote permit transparency and debate.  I hope that a publication custom/requirement changes this, and prompts the preparation of written statements that should improve the deliberation and reasoning.

Finally, Tarris wonders what "our HIPAA people and Risk Manager would say about Professor Pope's suggestion."  I think that this is readily addressed by stripping the opinions / decisions of all identifying information concerning the patient or even the institution.