Confidentiality in health care is a growing concern as nurses are often faced with the challenges of reacting to question regarding patient’s progress (McGowan, 2012). Confidentiality as defined by Gregory, Raymond-Seniuk, Patrick and Stephen (2015) is the promise given to a person that his or her personal information will not be disclosed randomly if no consent has been given regardless of who is seeking such information (p.600). This paper will attempt to explore the concept of confidentiality as a sensitive issue, challenges that nurses face as they try to protect patient’s health information and some guidelines that govern protection of information and when this information can be divulged. Achieving privacy of information and avoiding …show more content…
It would be heart wrenching and disturbing for a patient, when he has disclosed information to the nurse in confidence to have it come back to him or her especially in this era of social media where information spreads like wild fire and curtailing it may be difficult. The responsibility is on nurses to minimize the use of social media and take care to mind the information posted on them. Nurses are professionals; as a result, society expects better behavior and relationship with people. References Cox, C. (2016). Understanding confidentiality in health care. Diabetes & Primary Care, 18(5), 227-30. Gregory, D., Raymond-Seniuk, C., Patrick, L., & Stephen,T. (2015). Fundamentals: Perspectives on the art and science of Canadian nursing. Philadelphia: Wolters Kluwer. Griffith, R. (2015). Understanding the code: Scope of the duty of confidentiality. British Journal of Community Nursing, 20(6). McGowan, C. (2012). Patients’ confidentiality. Critical Care Nurse, 32(5), 61-64. Doi: http://dx.doi.org/10.4037/ccn2012135. Newman, A. B., & Kjervik, D.K. (2016). Critical care nurses’ knowledge of confidentiality legislation. American Journal of Critical Care, 25(3), 222-226. Rock, M.J., & Hoebeke, R. (2014). Informed consent: Whose duty to inform. MEDSURG Nursing, 23(3),
Confidentiality is a major topic within care environments. When it comes to deciding what information is shared and who it is shared amongst can be difficult. Confidential information, is information that is ‘not to be told to anyone’ (The Open University, 2015, p. 58). Information that is sensitive or not publicly known is confidential, also if information is given by a person who is in a setting where confidentially is expected then that information should remain private and not shared with others. It can be very difficult for a staff member to find the balance between knowing what information is confidential and appropriate information that needs to be shared between the staff team.
All workplaces and organisations need confidentiality policy in every health and social care sector, and the confidentiality procedures needs to be followed carefully to keep the person’s health position safe from unlawful people that can humiliate the person and they may lose their own self-respect. The only times that confidentiality shouldn’t be followed when someone who can self-harm, may not tell any kind of harm that has happened to them, and when they may be threatened by someone.
Planning included reaching out to other health organizations, objectives, and goals of health fair were established. The implementation includes getting volunteers, set up for the health fair. The evaluation of the process occurred throughout the implementation and changes were made as needed. The evaluation will be completed by gathering information from health booth to determine the number of participants. Review vendor and participant evaluations about the health fair including how they heard about the health fair, ratings of booths and suggestions for improvements. Record everything to determine changes. Reflection on past experiences and what worked and did not work.
Support: In health and social care practice, an individual is given required privacy, given independence, allowed individuality. Besides these, every individual is given equal rights, support, attention and care and his friends and families also treated properly. In health and social care, individual from culture of wide variety to be served and for this reason, views and values from different cultures and communities are respected.
In my ethics class, I was taught on different principles regarding to decision-making. Nursing school has taught me different issues that I can face in my career. One of the biggest ethics issues I learned about is patient confidentiality. We will never disclose any information to unauthorized personnel without patient consent. We have an ethical obligation to patient confidentiality and not to breech this. In clinical and class, while we discuss our patient, we do not use any of the patient’s names. When we talk about our patient, we do it in a close private room and not in the hallway where everyone can hear. As a graduate professional nurse, I need to be aware of patient confidentiality and other ethic issue in order to maintain the
Nursing surrounds the concept of patient care physically, mentally and ethically. The therapeutic relationship that is created is built on the knowledge and skills of the nurse and relies on patient and nurse trusting one another. The use of nursing skills can ensure these boundaries are maintained, it allows for safe patient care. Professional boundaries are the line that nurses cannot cross, involving aspects such as patient confidentiality and privacy, ensuring legal aspects of nursing and the boundaries put in place are not breached. However, nurses accepting financial or personal gain from patient can also cross these professional boundaries. It is only through education in this area that the rights of patients can be preserved, as well as the nursing standards. Through education in areas such as confidentiality, boundaries can remain in tact and the patient care can remain within the zone of helpfulness.
Which is very important for nurses or any medical professional to do in the healthcare profession. Nurses are receiving these patients in their most vulnerable state, nurses are exposed and trusted with the patients’ information to further assist them on providing optimum treatment. Keeping patient’s information private goes back to not just doing what’s morally right but also it also builds that nurse – patient relationship as well. We also have provision three that specifically taps on this issue as well, as it states: “The nurse seeks to protect the health, safety, and rights of patient.” (Nurses Code of Ethics,
As health care providers, nurses strive to instill confidence in their patients and their loved ones. A nurse is respectful to their colleagues as well as their patients. Nurses promote patients’ independence, patients can be confident in the knowledge that a nurse will do what is best for them, respecting their privacy and dignity. This means that a nurse does not share the patient information for personal reasons nor does the nurse get involved in a patients personal relationship if it is not medically relevant (NCSBN, 2011).
Firstly, Nurses must develop the right communication tools when dealing with their patients. For example most nurses do bedside reporting, before they change their shift in the morning, therefore they would be relaying information to the other nurse about the patient they dealt with during the night. The nurse that is going off shift would give a report to the incoming nurse in the presence of the patient. He or she has to discuss the condition of the patient, medications and the procedures so the next nurse would be on the same level. Most nurses in the General Hospital do their reporting by the bedside of their patients.
As a nurse, it is within your role to safeguard the right to privacy for individuals. To ensure that nurses are adhering to this, ethical strategies have been proposed and implemented from a legal and regulatory body.
Therefore, having an obligation of confidentiality then it prevent the health care provider from disclosing patient information. Moreover, they have a duty of reporting any breach of confidence to hospital’s administration so that a solution cannot be found. In addition, the nurse have an ethical obligation of respecting other people. Therefore, as a nurse one must respect show value and dignity to colleagues and patients and treat all people despite their personal attributes. Thus, in this case of Dr. Curious he was supposed to show respect to nurses, that is, avoid threatening their lives.
Confidentiality is usually referred to as an ethical issue. The duty of confidentiality goes beyond undertaking not to divulge confidential information it also includes a huge responsibility of making sure that all written patient information is kept securely.
Nursing may be seen as very independent work even though there will be situations that will require others. Friendships may be formed; however, to have professional interactions is something that is not always followed. In terms of patient confidentiality, we may not realize that a HIPPA violation has occurred due to friendly conversation with coworkers. If a patient were to overhear their nurse discussing their information in an unprofessional manner then it may cause issues with a patient’s dignity and their rights. If a patient’s right is violated then it can lead to a patient’s mistrust in their caregiver, leading to mistrust in the facilities, and can end with a patient’s health being compromised. The patient is the reason for this career; if the needs of the patient are being unmet or violated then the purpose of our occupation will be unsuccessful and
Confidentiality is defined as the protection of personal information. It means keeping a client’s information between the health care providers and the client. Every single patient has the right to privacy regarding their personal information from being released to anyone outside of their health care providers. Health care providers have a legal and ethical responsibility to protect all information regarding patients by not disclosing their information to anyone without their written consent from the patient.
Ethics asses the values, morals, and principles of nurses. Legal codes or laws are rules established by our government. It’s important that nurses have a clear and comprehensive understanding of ethical and legal codes within their career. The understanding of these codes is essential for nurses to safely practice and to protect their patients. Nurses must abide by these principles or face the consequences of legal action. These principles include autonomy, utilitarianism, confidentiality, and many others. Autonomy is the agreement to respect ones right to determine a course of action, while utilitarianism is what is best for most people as defined in American Nurses Association. In order to give you a