About the HEC-C Program
The Healthcare Ethics Consultant-Certified (HEC-C) program is the first-ever certification program that identifies and assesses a national standard for the professional practice of clinical healthcare ethics consulting. Established by the HCEC Certification Commission, the HEC-C credential endorses your knowledge of key concepts and underlying knowledge necessary for core skills in healthcare ethics, affirming basic competence. The HCEC Certification Commission is a body created and funded by the ASBH that has autonomous decision-making control over essential elements of the certification program.
The HEC-C program meets the National Commission for Certifying Agencies (NCCA) accreditation standards.
Who is eligible?
To be eligible for the HEC-C program and to sit for the exam, you will need:
- a minimum of a Bachelor's Degree; and
- 400 hours of healthcare ethics experience—related to the major domains of the content outline—within the previous 4 years.
Although all healthcare professionals engage in ethical decision making, healthcare ethics consultation is a distinct role. For purposes of HEC-C certification, healthcare ethics experience is defined as healthcare ethics consultation work, the vast majority of which is performed in the role of a designated healthcare ethics consultant, which is related to the major domain areas of the HEC-C examination content outline. Only active conduct of healthcare ethics consultation work is eligible. Hours spent learning or observing the work of a healthcare ethics consultant do not qualify.
Definition of Healthcare Ethics Consultation
Healthcare ethics consultants are professionals who provide healthcare ethics consultation services. Healthcare ethics consultation can be divided into (a) clinical ethics consultation and (b) other ethics-related work (Figure 1) (ASBH, 2026).
Clinical ethics consultation is a service provided in response to a question (or questions) from a patient[i], family member[ii], surrogate decision-maker[iii], healthcare professional[iv], administrator, or other involved party[v] who seeks to resolve uncertainty or conflict regarding value-laden[vi] concerns that emerge in the care of a specific patient. An ethics consultation service is responsible for providing clinical ethics consultations at healthcare facilities.
Healthcare ethics consultations take place in a variety of settings including academic medical centers, ambulatory care facilities, behavioral health facilities, community hospitals, community hospitals affiliated with a medical school, government facilities, health systems, home care, hospice, and long-term care.
Potential roles include administrator, associate professor, assistant professor, clinical ethicist, consultant, department director, director, lecturer, medical director, professor, and researcher.
[i] The term patient is used broadly throughout this edition to include people receiving healthcare, residents of long-term care facilities, members of health plans, etc.
[ii] The term family member is used broadly throughout this edition to include any person with whom the patient has a close personal relationship. Such persons may include blood relatives; relatives through marriage, adoption, etc.; close friends and other loved ones; and anyone whom the patient considers to be part of their “family,” however they define that term.
[iii] The term surrogate decision-maker is used throughout this edition to describe any person who is in the position of making choices on behalf of the patient. This may include someone holding a durable power of attorney for healthcare decisions, a court-appointed guardian, a legally designated agent, or any other person who is tasked with making choices for a patient who lacks the legal authority or cognitive capacity to make decisions for themselves.
[iv] The term healthcare professional is used throughout this edition as an umbrella category to refer to all those involved in patient care, including clinicians (i.e., physicians, psychologists, other independent licensed healthcare professionals), nurses, social workers, pharmacists, therapists, chaplains, nurses’ aides, technicians, and others.
[v] Involved party is defined as patients, family members, surrogate decision-makers, healthcare professionals involved in the specific case, administrators, and any other persons involved in it, who have impact on, or who have a vested interest in the care of the patient.
[vi] Regarding value, we realize that there are values embedded in many different domains (e.g., law, morals, professional practices, various communities, individual conceptions of the good). We use value as a general term to capture the various formative dimensions of issues that emerge in healthcare. Value uncertainty or conflict often arises because of competing values from these different domains (e.g., judgements about “best” treatment often differ depending on whether medical values or individual patient values are being considered).