Growing an ethics consultation service: A longitudinal study examining two decades of practice.

Background: Little is known about what factors may contribute to the growth of a consultation service or how a practice may change or evolve across time.

Methods: This study examines data collected from a busy ethics consultation service over a period of more than two decades.

Results: We report a number of longitudinal findings that represent significant growth in the volume of ethics consultation requests from 19 in 1990 to 551 in 2013, as well as important changes in the patient population for which ethics help is requested.