The way health care services are delivered today is dramatically different from how they were delivered just a few decades ago, yet we have done little to rethink how ethics services should accommodate those changes. As hospital systems are growing bigger through mergers and joint ventures, they are absorbing home health agencies in their efforts to provide a wider range of services. The vital function of peer support that home health ethics committees provide will be lost if they are also absorbed by institutional committees. If at all possible, home health agencies should maintain their own ethics committees or at least their own ethics teams.
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