Inna Gerenshteyn Patient Confidentiali
Patient Confidentiality, a Case Study
Inna Gerenshteyn
Empire State College
Patient Confidentiality,
A Case Study Advances in technology, including computerized medical databases, the Internet, and telehealth, have opened the door to potential, unintentional breaches of private/confidential health information. Protection of privacy/confidentiality is essential to the trusting relationship between health care providers and patients. Quality patient care requires the communication of relevant information between health professionals and/or health systems (ANA 2012). The following paper will review a case study, where patient confidentiality was breached. It will examine the ethical dilemma, hypothesize ethical arguments, present viable alternative actions, investigate, compare, and evaluate the arguments for each alternative, and examine the outcomes while reflecting on the ethical decision. The American Nurses Association outlined the importance of confidentiality in the Code of Ethics for Nurses (2008). Associated with the right to privacy, the nurse has a duty to maintain confidentiality of all patient information. The patient’s well-being could be jeopardized and the fundamental trust between patient and nurse destroyed by unnecessary access to data or by the inappropriate disclosure of identifiable patient information. The rights, well-being, and safety of the individual patient should be the primary factors in arriving at any professional judgment concerning the disposition of confidential information received from or about the patient, whether oral, written or electronic. The standard of nursing practice and the nurse’s responsibility to provide quality care require that relevant data be shared with those members of the healthcare team who have a need to know. Only information pertinent to a patient’s treatment and welfare is disclosed, and only to those directly involved with the patient’s care. Duties of confidentiality, however, are
Inna Gerenshteyn
Empire State College
Patient Confidentiality,
A Case Study Advances in technology, including computerized medical databases, the Internet, and telehealth, have opened the door to potential, unintentional breaches of private/confidential health information. Protection of privacy/confidentiality is essential to the trusting relationship between health care providers and patients. Quality patient care requires the communication of relevant information between health professionals and/or health systems (ANA 2012). The following paper will review a case study, where patient confidentiality was breached. It will examine the ethical dilemma, hypothesize ethical arguments, present viable alternative actions, investigate, compare, and evaluate the arguments for each alternative, and examine the outcomes while reflecting on the ethical decision. The American Nurses Association outlined the importance of confidentiality in the Code of Ethics for Nurses (2008). Associated with the right to privacy, the nurse has a duty to maintain confidentiality of all patient information. The patient’s well-being could be jeopardized and the fundamental trust between patient and nurse destroyed by unnecessary access to data or by the inappropriate disclosure of identifiable patient information. The rights, well-being, and safety of the individual patient should be the primary factors in arriving at any professional judgment concerning the disposition of confidential information received from or about the patient, whether oral, written or electronic. The standard of nursing practice and the nurse’s responsibility to provide quality care require that relevant data be shared with those members of the healthcare team who have a need to know. Only information pertinent to a patient’s treatment and welfare is disclosed, and only to those directly involved with the patient’s care. Duties of confidentiality, however, are
References: American Nursing Association (2008) Nurses Code of Ethics, Washington, DC: American Nursing Association American Nursing Association (2012) Privacy and confidentiality, Washington, DC. Retrieved from http://www.nursingworld.org/MainMenuCategories/Policy-Advocacy/Positions- and-Resolutions/ANAPositionStatements/Position-Statements- Alphabetically/PrivacyandConfidentiality.html McGonigle, D., & Mastrian, K. G. (2012). Nursing informatics and the foundation of knowledge (2nd ed.). Burlington, MA: Jones and Bartlett Learning