Moral distress among medical managers in Swiss hospitals - status quo and potential solutions

Health Experiences Overview

In clinical patient care, medical managers in hospitals (acute somatics) make decisions that have an impact on the recovery of sick people, on the implementation of care processes and on the economic results and framework of the overall operation. In doing so, they operate in a complex field of tension in everyday clinical practice in order to achieve a satisfactory balance between medical necessity, the economic framework and the ethical justification of care. Based on the ethical primacy of patient benefit, conflicting situations can arise for medical managers that cannot be adequately resolved within the given scope of action. Moral distress can arise as a possible effect of such dilemmas. This study records moral distress phenomena among medical managers in hospitals in a structured manner, reflects on them ethically and proposes solution-oriented conceptual approaches for effectively limiting the negative effects of moral distress on the medical profession.

• Nikola Biller-Andorno (Principal investigator)
• Thomas Kapitza (Project management, conceptualization, implementation)
• Giovanni Spitale (Data analytics)
• Federico Germani (Data analytics)

Financed by: Käthe Zingg-Schwichtenberg (KZS) Fonds, FMH Bern

Duration: Nov 2022 – Dec 2023