Maintaining privacy and confidentiality in a clinical workplace is not only vital to patients care, but also their worth and dignity. It should also be practiced properly in order to avoid errors and liabilities for a nurse. Nurses are expected to maintain utmost professionalism when caring for their patients and should ensure that patient privacy is not breached from any unauthorized individuals or parties. The introduction of technology can also lead to the use of social media, which has made it more dangerous and common for a patient's health care information to be leaked. It has become part of the numerous responsibilities for a nurse to advocate for their patient and ensure that consent is obtained from them before there are any such uploads to social media. Nurses can use the values such as “Maintaining Privacy and Confidentiality” as a guide in how to keep a professional relationship with their present or future clients.
As part of the ethical responsibility of ensuring patient confidentiality, it is important for the nurse to be aware of who are authorized to have access to their health records. Prior to nurses being able to go work in a public health space, they are taught the policies that must
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The relationship between a nurse and a patient during care should be professional and not a personal one. Care should be completely patient oriented and a nurse is liable to face numerous consequences from inappropriately exposing vital information. It is a nurse’s duty that this information be kept in complete confidence with qualified persons, whether it be electronically or verbally. Confidentiality is also crucial in establishing a relationship which should be built on mutual trust. Having this trust will help the patient feel more comfortable and feel more inclined to seek help as well as grant the nurse enough insight of their needs and give them optimum
Privacy is of the utmost importance within a medical practice, ethically a patient’s privacy is very important as a medical record contains information regarding a patient’s health. According to
The nurse must maintain privacy and confidentiality involves only sharing patient information on a need-to-know basis. Actions in healthcare delivery are structured and governed by HIPPA law. The nurse must act to prevent breaches of confidentiality. For example, the supervisor did not agree to allow two students in the room with the doctor in other to ensure privacy and confidentiality. Fidelity: Fidelity is referred to integrity, which is done by loyalty, fairness, truthfulness, advocacy, and dedication that is motivated by an underlying principle of care.
The State of Connecticut Board of Nursing does not have a position statement regarding the use of social media. The use of social media by nurses has steadily increased, and the clarity between what is personal information and what is work-related information has become more unclear. The American Nurses Association has made recommendations for the use of social media by nurses. The guidelines focus on the nurse legal and ethical obligation to protect the patient’s privacy (Spector & Kappel, 2012). With the increased use of technology and our dependence on the digital communications and involvement with social media there are greater threats for patient privacy violations.
Healthcare providers and organizations are obligated and bound to protect patient confidentiality by laws and regulations. Patient information may only be disclosed to those directly involved in the patient’s care or those the patient identifies as able to receive the information. The HIPAA Act of 1996 is the federal law mandating healthcare organizations and clinicians to safeguard patient’s medical information. This law corresponds with the Health Information Technology for Economic and Clinical Health Act to include security standards for protecting electronic health information. The healthcare organization is legally responsible for establishing procedures to prevent data
Theses steps are imperative to maintaining the patient’s privacy. When disclosing
Confidentiality and data breaches are a few of the main concerns, as many providers become neglectful when sharing patient electronic health information. Current use of Electronic Health Records (EHR) has proven to be helpful for hospitals and independent medical practice to provide efficient care for patients. Balestra reports that using computers to maintain patient health records and care reduces errors, and advances in health information technology are saving lives and reducing cost (Balestra, 2017). As technology advances EHR are going to continue to be the main method of record keeping among medical providers. Therefore, staff and medical providers need to be trained on how to properly share patients EHR safely and in a secure form in order to maintain patient confidentiality.
By communicating effectively and sharing information, practitioners can ensure that the individual receives a coordinated and comprehensive care. Confidentiality is maintained by respecting the privacy of individuals, not sharing their personal information without their consent and ensuring that all records are kept securely. This is important to protect the rights of individuals and maintain
On any given shift, nurses have access to some of the most personal private information about a patient and his or her family. A right to privacy is grounded in the society and is protected by the United States Constitution. In addition, the American Nurses Association (ANA) Codes for Nurses prohibits disclosure of confidential patient information, as do the ethical codes of many other professional organizations (Malek, 2010). The Joint Commission mandates that institutions maintain and adhere to policies and standards to protect patient information. According to Malek (2010), nurses must remember that a right to privacy protects more than the patient’s medical record; it protects them from unauthorized photographs and news stories, as well
And have I given everyone an equal opportunity to succeed? With respect to this reference, my personal code of ethics, the relationship between nurse and patient is important. Because it is responsible to the safety of the patient, it is a nurse after all. In order to play an important role to the safety of the patient, nurses to
The nurse is also to represent the profession of nursing and its fellow health care members by maintaining the integrity of the profession and its practice (Arnold & Boggs, 2016). The nurse can simply post a picture with the patient wishing them a quick recovery easily leading to a violation of HIPAA guidelines. When patient confidentiality is not protected by medical personnel, ethical codes as well are not being upheld. If the nurse does not maintain professional standards they place themselves in an unacceptable position, one that could allow for their license to be revoked, charged with a hefty fine, or possible jail
This is reserved for the doctor alone. However, as a nurse that has developed a relationship with her patient it would be very difficult to not answer her question honestly. In addition, the patient might feel more comforted hearing the diagnosis from her nurse rather than the doctor as the nurse has been caring for her and they have developed a therapeutic relationship. Ethics are recognized globally as an essential part of being a nurse (Kangasniemi, 2014).
If nurses make mistakes, they have to admit it. In addition, Nurses have an ethical responsibility to keep their patients ' medical record confidentiality. Nurses shouldn 't release this confidential data to other persons. Furthermore, Nurses need to be trusted with a great deal of high profile information. A patient counts on a nurse 's professionalism and integrity to keep their medical information confidential.
If we as nurses respect the confidentiality of a patient, we should do so for all the patients. However, Griffith (2007) argues that the duty of confidence should not be absolute and nurses should always consider sharing information if required. Though the principle of respecting patient autonomy and their right to confidentiality is broken here, the principle of beneficence and non-maleficence is uphold. Nurses have an obligation to protect patient’s confidentiality but the duty to warn an innocent party of imminent harm is far more critical. Therefore, breaking confidentiality here is potentially doing more good than
As a group we all decided that it is best for the patient’s notes to be filed in the nurse’s station due to issues surrounding confidentiality and privacy. As a group we chose to show a clinical scenario which started off with a role play and ended with a debrief discussion which also incorporated the Australian nursing and midwifery code of ethics (2008) and the competency standards for registered nurses which explained where an ethical breach had been made.
The ethical principle that would apply to my ethical problem is privacy and confidentiality. Privacy belongs to each person and, as such, it cannot be taken away from that person unless he/she wishes to share it. Confidentiality, on the other hand, means that the information shared with other persons will not be spread abroad and will be used only for the purposes intended (Silva and Ludwick, 1999). In many hospitals especially The Virgin Islands hospitals, this ethical code has been broken many times. As nurses we are supposed to protect our patients but, in this community, we fail to do so.