Creation of ORPEA’s International Scientific and Ethics Committee

Ethics has always been an integral part of ORPEA’s culture. It is embedded in all day-to-day decisions and at all levels of the organisation.

To support this approach, many tools have been created and are used daily by our staff.

Today, in order to take this approach a step further and enrich our group-wide responsible professional culture, ORPEA has created a Scientific and Ethics Committee, which met for the first time on 3 March last.

 

The role of this new international body is to support ethical thought and clinical research at both ORPEA and CLINEA, with a view to improving care and practices for the well-being of residents and patients. The goals of ORPEA’s Scientific and Ethics Committee are to:

• Raise the awareness of professionals about the ethical aspects of their care and assistance practices and make sure they receive training in these issues;

• Contribute to developing a responsible professional culture in ethics and research, shared group-wide;

• Help to express the specific needs of health, social and organisational research and innovation in light of prevailing legislation and to respond to those needs through a responsible approach.

 

The Committee, which is chaired by Professor Franco, brings its insight, experience and skills in the areas of quality and medical safety, health and well-being, science and techniques. The Committee comprises:

• A consultative academic committee for the scientific side, responsible for selecting and giving an opinion on research and innovation projects, as well as university conferences, dissertations and theses.

• An International Clinical Ethics Committee whose role is to rule on clinical ethics matters referred by the Group’s facilities and to provide resources, information and training in ethics.