Ethical issues and Dilemmas around confidentiality arise.

Ethical issues and Dilemmas around confidentiality arise.

I have worked in the health care field for 10 years. Ethical dilemmas are found in almost every aspect of the healthcare delivery system. I have seen numerous issues related to ethical issues, but the most common reoccurring issue is a breach of patient confidentiality. Dilemmas around confidentiality arise continually wither it be intentional or unintentional, When the principle of confidentiality is in possible conflict with other ethical principles. We use Ethics as a code of conduct. It is best to keep in mind as you advance your career throughout medical field a good understand of ethical and moral behavior. The health care field is changing, as technology becomes or modern it is understandable easy for information is leaked.

Information about a patient’s medical condition is considered private. Violating a patient’s confidentiality can hurt the patient’s social status, and have legal and ethical consequences for the health care worker. The Health Insurance Portability and Accounting Act (HIPAA) has drawn up specific laws that govern the release of a patient’s medical information. These laws state clearly the type of patient information that can be released to third parties and which information must be kept confidential. The laws also set forth who can see the information and who cannot. Although these laws appear straightforward, there are grey areas such as when withholding information about a patient’s condition would be unethical because it could harm the patient or someone.

While at work a medical assistant discuss information about to another assistant current medical assistant in a public location, In this case the medical assistant deliberately revealed information that the patient had been tested for a specific disease. To a fellow co-worker in a public area, However, sometimes confidential medical information is leaked inadvertently when physicians or other healthcare providers carelessly discuss clinical matters in public places, in which should be discussed using discretion in a proper ethical base or a need to know bases. Never should such information be diverged on elevators or in hospital cafeteria. Unless given permission to talk about or release personal patient information, physicians and staff members should protect patients’ confidentiality by keeping such information private.

The medical assistant should have followed federal and state laws about maintaining confidentiality and privacy of patients’ information, (nformation Privacy Law and Policya, 2019)and would not discuss patients and cases or patient health-related information with others in public areas. The medical assistant should have also complied with the code of normative ethics. Normative ethics is an approach to ethics that works from standards of right or good action. There are three types of normative theories: virtue theories, deontological theories, and teleological theories. If the medical assistant applied the rule of virtue theory in which is a normative theory or character traits, he may have been more careful and compassionate when he breached the rights of patient confidentiality. I believe it is important to understand all the ethical issues that can occur in the health care field. I also believe it is important to apply ethics as a code of conduct when working in the health care field.

To protect patients’ rights I believe the health care facility should work with the practice or facility to develop and implement a policy for maintaining patient confidentiality. All medical staff of the practice should be trained in, the proper way information is the exchange and should follow the privacy policy. The director of the hospital should consider having staff members undergo yearly confidentiality training and asking them to sign a confidentiality agreement each time they complete the training.

NORCAL Group policyholders can obtain a sample confidentiality agreement form by contacting a Risk Management Specialist.

Justice calls for all patients to be treated fairly and to be able to expect that their private medical information will be held in confidence. A breach of patient confidentiality goes against a physician’s pledge in the Hippocratic Oath that “what I may see or hear in the course of treatment or even outside of treatment in regard to the life of patients, which on no account must be spread abroad. A breach of confidentiality occurs when a patient’s private information is disclosed to a third party without their consent. There are limited exceptions to this, including disclosures to state health officials and court orders requiring medical records to be produced. Patient confidentiality is protected under state law. If a patient’s private information is disclosed without authorization and causes some type of harm to the patient, he or she could have a cause of action against the medical provider for malpractice, invasion of privacy, or other related torts. Of course, if the patient consented to the disclosure, no breach occurred.

Under the legal concept of vicarious liability, the physician employer can be held responsible for the acts of an employee that are committed in the course of employment. Unfortunately even though in this case it was the medical assistant who disclosed information about the patient’s evaluation for the medical disease, both the medical assistant and the physician were liable. The patient’s private information was disclosed in conversation, but physicians must also protect documented patient information whether contained in paper charts or electronic health records. National and state privacy laws, including the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) and the Health Information Technology for Economic and Clinical Health Act (HITECH), are legal mandates that correlate with the ethical duty of confidentiality.

Legal implications can consist of a lawsuit in federal court against the facility and other facilities that were associated with staffing and ownership, alleging several causes of action. They included breach of fiduciary duty to maintain the confidentiality of personal health information, breach of contract, negligent hiring and training of employees, and breach of duty to maintain patient confidentiality, according to records. The patient may be able to recover compensatory damages, including emotional suffering and damage to reputation resulting from the disclosure. In some states, courts will assume that the patient was damaged by a wrongful disclosure by a doctor (meaning that the patient will not have to actually prove damages). Moreover, some state legislatures have prescribed set penalties involving this kind of wrongful disclosure. Some states also allow punitive damages for, particularly egregious disclosures. For example, some courts have awarded punitive damages when doctors have contacted the parents of a patient seeking an abortion after the patient specifically expressed a desire to keep the abortion confidential. Doctors might also be subject to sanctions by state medical boards for violating confidentiality rules. Although such sanctions do not help the patient, they reduce the likelihood that future breaches of confidentiality will be made

REFERENCES

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