Administrative Ethics Paper Hcs/335

1052 Words5 Pages
Administrative Ethics Paper HCS/335 November 5, 2012 Administrative Ethics Paper In today’s world of technology patient’s face an ever challenging issue of protecting their privacy. One of the biggest areas infringing on a patient’s privacy would be the prescription health information that is being released by pharmacists and the way in which that information is used. Information is given to a wide variety of entities and to individuals, which raises enormous concern about the privacy rights of patients, especially considering the fact that the patient has not given consent for the release of this information. Legislative and judicial attention is being given on how to protect privacy identifiable information on prescription…show more content…
Moreover, encryption requires use of a key or cipher, which is used to lock and unlock the hidden data. Such a key is necessary to allow the hidden data to be viewed in an intelligible manner by those who are authorized to view it. However, there is always a risk that the encryption key might fall into the wrong hands, thereby allowing the information to be accessed by unauthorized viewers. There are many problems that could arise from a patient’s information landing into the hands of a stranger, a boss, an enemy, or any other individual that does not have permission to view that information. The Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) needs to take a hard look at the problems that exist with the identifiable patient prescription PHI, the de-identified patient prescription PHI, and the encrypted prescription PHI. These issues affect the entire population and can have a devastating impact on those that have their personal information get into the wrong hands. If there is an employee who has Aides and they don’t want other worker’s to know, it would be too easy for an employer to obtain that information. The arguments and facts that are used in the article support the proposed solution by stating the problems that arise without having laws in place to protect the privacy rights of patients. There are many ethical and legal issues when you are dealing with privacy rights, including the chances of getting sued by individuals for

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