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Patient's Dilemma Breach Of Confidentiality In Health Care

Decent Essays

Confidentiality is one of the main duties of health care providers. They are required to keep a patient’s health information private unless patient consent to release of the information (De Bord et al, 2013). Dilemmas in patient’s confidentiality may arise when there is disagreement between the principle of confidentiality and other ethical principles such as avoiding harm to the patient or others.
The main aims of this paper is to explain my professional position concerning patient confidentiality. Including explanation of the ethical consequences of a breach of confidentiality, provides ethical principles to support my point, find out valid alternative to deal with dilemma. Finally describe the role of ethics committee in resolving dilemma …show more content…

The implications of breaking confidentiality would be the patients lose of trust in the healthcare provider. The patient’s loss of trust is detrimental to healthcare practice because patients will not provide all needed information due to fear that their secret might be revealed to third party. Patients may at times fail to seek medical help altogether when their privacy is exposed (Nathason, 2000). Breaking the confidential agreement between a patient and healthcare provider is equal to not respecting the patient’s privacy. Healthcare providers are bound by the Hippocratic Oath to uphold their patient’s privacy and the patients expect them to do so
In the case of Nurse Hathway and the teenage girl scenario, fidelity, confidentiality and respect for person’s autonomy are involved. The nurse gains the trust of this young girl by promising her that the information she provided would be confidential. But this young girl is diagnosed with cervical cancer, the nurse decide to breach the confidentiality she promised the teenager, because they need her parent support and consent for the treatments. By informing the school system of the situation, she breaches the confidentiality because HPV and cervical cancer are not legally reportable STDs (Nathason, …show more content…

Step one: collecting useful data. Find out exactly what is going on in that patient’s life. The patient’s relationship with the parents. If the patient is in abusive home environment? Step two: identifying the type of ethical problem. The ethical dilemma in this case is whether this nurse to keep promise made to the patient or to break in order to make sure patient receive adequate care. Step three: Using ethical theories to examine the problem. The use of ethical analysis will help the nurse to move toward resolution and to take action that are compatible with caring response (Purtilo & Doherty, 2011). Step four: Evaluate the practical alternatives: The nurse should list all alternatives. She can discuss the alternatives with one of her colleague whom she trust and share this type of situation without breaching patient’s confidentiality. Step five: Complete the action: The nurse require courage and strength to act, bearing in mind that there may be some risks (Purtilo & Doherty, 2011). Step six: Evaluating the process and outcome. The nurse determine what she did well, why she think is appropriate intervention, the most challenging part of the situation and what the patient and her family, and others said about the action taken (Purtilo & Doherty,

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