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Abstract

Another frontier of contemporary ethics is using whistle-blowers as a means to fight fraud and abuse in health care organizations. The federal government does this by increasingly relying on the False Claims Act and quitam suits brought by whistleblowers. This article argues that this approach is dysfunctional for both the whistleblower and the organizations targeted by them. The article proposes that enhanced standards, informed by virtue ethics and utilized by independent bodies such as the Joint Commission on the Accreditation of Healthcare Organizations or JCAHO during the health care organization accreditation process, offer a better alternative to the current retributive approach now used by the federal government.

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Are There Virtues in Whistleblowing? Perspectives from Health Care Organizations

Abstract

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References