Ethics in Nursing
Ethics in Nursing
and in the process, harm patients interests. For instance, According to Privacy Rights
Clearinghouse (2015), a non-profit organization that works to ensure consumer protection
and awareness in the society, in the last 10 years, 4,608 security breaches in the healthcare
system has caused in the breaching of 868,403,517 patient records. However, many
healthcare workers, in spite of their awareness of these legislative legalities, do not
understand their implications. The fact remains that the seemingly regular act of collecting
patient data and using it in a healthcare setup, something that should ideally be considered
secondary to the actual healthcare provided, can cost a healthcare setup millions, when a
small error is made or when some small accident occurs. Hospitals and healthcare centers
become liable to pay millions of dollars, when patient information is mishandled.
The HIPAA also protects the patients by ensuring that their private information is not
used for commercial purposes (Croll, 2010). Today, almost all industries make their customer
information available to retailers, so that the trends in consumption can be used for
manufacturing, marketing and sales. Naturally, the information available for medical
purposes is sensitive data that cannot be simply made available to retailers in the medical
business. However, companies are always seeking such information, and nurses can become
easy targets if they unknowingly make patient information available for non-health or
marketing reasons. Consequently, all nurses need to be trained in nursing informatics, such
that they can utilize and safeguard the data available to them diligently and ethically.
The Barriers Presented by the Legislative Legalities in Successful Organizational
Implementation
There are several hurdles caused by the HIPAA and PSQIA regulations in healthcare
organizations. For instance, a nurse cannot simply view patient information to satisfy his or
her scientific, professional curiosity. Nurses must meet several legal requirements, which
include their background and credentialing and licensing status (Croll, 2010). This could
inhibit the nurses educational growth. Moreover, nurses, as the first and constant point of
contact with the patients, are often required to maintain a relationship with the patient, based
on their knowledge of the patient. When such nurses have limited information, they can be
limited in the services they offer as well. This cannot reflect well on the healthcare
organization in the long term. In addition, the healthcare setting is such that patients and their
families and friends are often emotional and aggravated with stress. The patients can also be
suspicious of the quality of care provided to them, simply because they do not trust the
system. This can lead to their refusal to provide access to minimum healthcare workers,
which can make the workplace environment difficult for the nurses, who require access to
patient formation to do their jobs well. Again, in the long term, any problems caused by such
a situation do not reflect well upon the organization. Finally, the financial costs of any issues
with EHR handling can cause the organization to run significant losses, and such costs are
inevitable, because a foolproof EHR system has not been established yet (Croll, 2010; Hjort,
2007). A well-known example is the public declaration of the Department of Veterans Affairs,
believed to have an exception EHR system as well as an Tele-health system, regarding
several unintentional security failures.
The Methods for Health Care Organizations to make the most of their EHR investments in a
Meaningful Manner
The best step, given the aforementioned situation, is to invest in securing patient data,
rather than pay financially for it, even potentially losing reputation over it. Human, natural,
and technological threats must be evaluated regularly to ensure that security breaches do not
occur. In todays date, it has become essential for healthcare centers and hospitals to invest in
a sound technology along with adept technical personnel, thus ensuring reliable and alert data
collection and security.
legislations, ethics and the medical arena has be foresee if healthcare organizations intend to
avoid pressing problems in the future. Nursing informaticists are required to find a sense of
equilibrium in dealing with the straightforward access that digital record maintenance
provides with the requirement for patient privacy and confidentiality.
How EHR-related meaningful use legislation is implemented in the authors organization
The organization, for which the author of this paper works, ensures that the nursing
staff is well informed and educated about the intricacies of the subject, that is, nursing
informatics. It provides training as well as education, which equips all nurses with the
awareness and skills necessary to identify, infer, evaluate, and theorize using patient data. In
fact, incomplete data logs, with missing identifiers as well as absent private information can
be sensitively handled and utilized by the nursing staff here. The organization also has the
best data safeguarding system in the market today. In addition, it invests in a technology cell,
which works towards upgrading the system, which shows its cautious and dedicated approach
to safeguarding patient data. Finally, it also provides education aid for nurses interested in
having a career in informatics.
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References