Ellen Fox

About Ellen Fox

Ellen Fox, M.D, HEC-C is a clinical ethicist, bioethics consultant, educator, researcher, policymaker, and former Federal Executive. Her career has focused on working with public and private sector organizations to address pressing ethical issues in health care. She specializes in developing innovative approaches to complex social problems and managing systems-level change. As President of Fox Ethics Consulting, she helps hospitals, health care systems, academic institutions, professional societies, corporations, government agencies, and individuals with ethics consultation, policy development, strategic planning, and quality improvement. She also collaborates with other professionals on national initiatives, research projects, curriculum design, and academic publications and serves as an expert witness on legal cases. Fox is also President of COPACET (Commission on Program Accreditation for Clinical Ethicist Training) – a new 501(c)(3) organization formed as a Committee on Accreditation under the Commission on Accreditation for Allied Health Education Programs (CAAHEP). CAAHEP is the largest accrediting association for healthcare training programs in the United States. The role of CAAHEP Committees on Accreditation is to develop and review educational Standards and Guidelines for a profession, assess individual educational programs that apply for accreditation, and make recommendations to CAAHEP for accreditation of programs that meet the Standards and Guidelines. Fox is also a researcher who authored the most widely cited article in the the American Journal of Bioethics, which is the #1 most widely cited journal in the field. From she served as Chief Ethics In Health Care Officer for the Department of Veterans Affairs and Director of the National Center for Ethics in Health Care, which under her leadership became one of the preeminent ethics centers in the world. In her VA role, Fox served as Principal Advisor to the Under Secretary for Health and was responsible for national policy on matters relating to clinical and organizational ethics. During her tenure with VA she instigated and led multiple high-profile national quality improvement initiatives for VA including IntegratedEthics,® iMedConsent, and the Life-Sustaining Treatment Decisions Initiative.

Experience

1. President

   Copacet

   Jan 2025 — Present

   I recently founded and currently serve as President of COPACET (Council on Program Accreditation for Clinical Ethicist Training), a new accrediting organization for clinical ethicist training programs. COPACET\'s mission is to promote high professional competence for clinical ethicists by setting training standards, encouraging program excellence, and evaluating training programs. Established as a 501c3 non-profit organization, COPACET functions as a Committee on Accreditation (CoA) under the larger health education accreditor, CAAHEP (Commission for Accreditation of Allied Health Education Programs). Our national organizational sponsors are the Association of Bioethics Program Directors (ABPD) and the Catholic Health Association (CHA).

Education

• Yale University

  BA, Psychobiology

• Yale University

  Internal Medicine Residency Program

  1987 — 1990

• Harvard Medical School

  MD, Medicine

  1983 — 1987

Skills

• Research Ethics
• Business Ethics
• Hospitals
• Clinical Research
• Research
• Organizational Ethics
• Health Care Proxies
• End of Life
• Public Speaking
• Ethical Decision Making
• Healthcare Improvement
• Business Strategy
• Professional Services
• Program Development
• Healthcare Consulting
• Internal Medicine
• Medical Education
• Policy
• Organizational Culture
• Palliative Care
• Professional Ethics
• Bioethics
• Physicians
• Advance Care Planning
• Leadership
• Strategic Planning
• Informed Consent
• Health Care Systems
• Nonprofits
• Treatment
• Higher Education
• Advance Directives
• Ethical Leadership
• Ethics Consultation
• Public Health
• Health Services Research
• Healthcare Management
• Medicine
• Healthcare Information Technology
• Health Policy