Few institutions have published reviews concerning the case consultation history of their ethics committees, and policies used by ethics committees to address inappropriate treatment are infrequently reviewed. We sought to characterize the operation of our institution’s ethics committee as a representative example of a volunteer ethics committee, and outline its use of a policy to address inappropriate treatment, the Conscientious Practice Policy (CPP). Patients were identified for retrospective review from the ethics consultation database. Patient demographics, medical admission information, and consultation information were obtained from the medical record. Consultation notes were analyzed with directed content analysis. The use of the CPP was documented in each case. Groups of interest were compared via two-sample t-tests. There were 178 consultations between 2013 and 2018. The majority originated from medicine services (N = 145, 82.4%). The most common consultation reasons were end-of-life balances of acute and palliative care (N = 85, 47.2%), best interest standard (N = 82, 46.1%), medical futility (N = 68, 38.2%), and code status and intubation status (N = 67, 37.6%). Average age was 65.5 years and average hospitalization before consultation was 51.4 days. 92 patients (53.3%) had a code status change that occurred after consultation. A policy to address inappropriate treatment (CPP) was used in 42 (23.9%) of the consultations. Bivariate analysis demonstrated a reduction in policy use over time, with use in 32.1% of consultations from 2013 to 2016 and 11.4% of consultations 2017–2018, p = 0.002. End-of-life issues were the most common reason for consultation. Our consultation volume was lower than previously-published reports. A policy used to address inappropriate treatment was frequently used, although use decreased over time.

很少有机构就其伦理委员会的病例咨询历史发表评论，伦理委员会用于解决不当治疗的政策也很少被审查。我们试图将我们机构伦理委员会的运作描述为志愿者伦理委员会的代表性例子，并概述其使用政策来解决不适当的治疗，即尽职尽责的实践政策 (CPP)。从伦理咨询数据库中确定患者进行回顾性审查。从病历中获得患者人口统计数据、入院信息和会诊信息。通过定向内容分析对咨询说明进行了分析。在每种情况下都记录了 CPP 的使用。通过两个样本 t 检验比较感兴趣的组。2013 年至 2018 年间共进行了 178 次咨询。大多数来自医疗服务（N = 145, 82.4%）。最常见的咨询原因是急性和姑息治疗的临终平衡（N = 85, 47.2%）、最佳利益标准（N = 82, 46.1%）、医疗无效（N = 68, 38.2%）和代码状态和​​插管状态（N = 67, 37.6%）。平均年龄为 65.5 岁，平均住院天数为 51.4 天。92 名患者（53.3%）在咨询后发生了代码状态变化。42 次（23.9%）的咨询中使用了解决不当治疗（CPP）的政策。双变量分析表明，随着时间的推移，政策使用减少，2013 年至 2016 年的咨询中有 32.1% 使用政策，2017-2018 年咨询的使用率为 11.4%，p = 0.002。临终问题是咨询的最常见原因。我们的咨询量低于之前发布的报告。经常使用用于解决不适当治疗的政策，尽管随着时间的推移使用减少。