Every individual has the right to privacy. According to Webster’s, privacy is defined in terms of a person having control over the extent, timing, and circumstances of sharing their information whether it be physically, behaviorally, or intellectually, with others. The International Guidelines for Biomedical Research Involving Human Subject was created in 1993 by the Council for International Organizations of Medical Sciences (CIOMS) and the World Health Organization (WHO). These guidelines not only provide clear requirements for respecting the privacy of research participants and maintaining the confidentiality of their personal information., but also for all health care professionals to adhere too. Confidentiality is one of the …show more content…
The main ethical argument around confidentiality is whether more harm is done by sometimes breaching confidentiality or by always respecting it regardless of the consequences. The ethical dilemma that will be analyzed is, if is it acceptable for healthcare providers to break this patient confidentiality if he or she knows that a patient’s health status may be harming others. According to research done by Kleinman et al, the confidentiality of a patient’s information is prescribed in law. This means that there are legal requirements in order to reveal certain kinds of information without the patient’s consent which are defined in both statutory and common law. This ethical dilemma can be analyzed with three major moral principles. These principles were created to give people a shared and serviceable group of norms for analyzing many types of moral problems (Beauchamp, 2007). The first moral principle to be applied to this dilemma is Autonomy. Autonomy is the principle that gives individuals the right to be self-determining and to act autonomously, deciding for oneself what to do (Munson, 2013). It is rooted in the liberal moral and political tradition of the importance of individual freedom and choice (Beauchamp, 2007). It is the physician’s duty to respect the patient’s autonomy in all medical decision-making. This means that the patient has the right to control
Confidentiality is a concept of vast importance for professionals in the medical field. It is a professional obligation in this field and is considered to be an ethical concept that falls in line with integrity, compassion, veracity, charity, and fidelity as explained in both the International Council of Nurses Code for Nurses (1973) and the American Nurses Association Code of Ethics (1985). However, in today’s ever growing world of technology and demand for information, challenges continue to arise that force doctors and nurses to reexamine virtues such as confidentiality.
Health professionals are privileged because they are able to help and change people’s lives by the care they offer, but this can only happen if the staff is fully informed and has all the details on the patient’s health history. This information usually can be obtained without difficulty but for sensitive issues a trust based relationship needs to be established in order for the patient to provide all their medical history. This is known as confidentiality to patients and is extremely important in be kept. Many patients struggle to give information because it may either cause shame to them or they may feel rejected by the health care staff. Such is the case for a couple of teen girls who put their
The first step in this process is gathering all relevant information. Once the healthcare provider is certain that all pertinent information is evaluated they can determine the type of ethical dilemma. In this case the ethical dilemma was the choice to maintain or breach patient confidentiality. After determining the nature of the dilemma it is important to use a theoretical framework to analyze the issue. The nurse using a utilitarianistic theory would look at all consequences of breaking confidentiality versus maintaining confidentiality. If the nurse utilizes a deontological approach the decision is made based on the nurse’s duty and responsibility to uphold patient confidentiality. The nurse would then determine what to do in the situation by looking at all the alternatives. After determining a course of action the nurse must proceed with the action that is thought to be best. In the end the nurse should evaluate the outcomes of the decision for future professional development (Purtilo & Dougherty, 2010).
The principle of autonomy conflicts in this case because the physician is thinking of taking the decision for the patient without consulting Mr. Wilson. Instead the patient should be told the truth about the pros and cons of both medications. According to the principle of autonomy the patient should have the voluntary choice to accept or refuse the treatment. In this case the physician is not taking into consideration the lifestyle adjustments that the patient will have to undergo but rather she is focusing on the patient’s ability to pay for the drug. Although, she is empathizing with the patient because of his lack of health insurance she should also take into consideration that Mr. Wilson’s blood sugar continues to be moderately high. The patient should have the right to free choice however, Mr. Wilson, should be adequately informed about both drugs so that he is aware of the predictable outcomes for both. This is because the patient is not expected to choose among available options because he/she lacks medical training. This is when the physician tries to understand or interpret the patient’s values and
There are many reasons that healthcare professionals should ensure the privacy of their patients. Not only does HIPPA require (De Bord, Burke, & Dudzinski, 2014) confidentiality, healthcare professionals are bound by codes of ethics as well as state and federal agencies (Fordney, 2014, p. 23). The healthcare industry is highly regulated and ever one in the healthcare industry are held to the highest levels of scrutiny (Fordney, 2014, p. 23). We, as healthcare professionals, must know all Federal, State, and Local laws pertaining to a patient’s health information. In my opinion, one of the basic rules we should follow is learning what is ethical and moral. This only makes common sense to me that we should keep our opinions to ourselves, not gossip about other’s, and keep private individuals' personal information. We should respect all individual’s privacy and maintain complete confidentiality.
The guidelines for the protection of human subjects used in research will start with privacy and confidentially. Protecting personal privacy is to protect the interests of individuals. Privacy addresses the question of who has access to personal information, and the use of personal information. Confidentiality is the limited scope in which a person’s private information is shared with others.
Confidentiality of information is an important basis for a good patient-physician relationship. The physician-patient relationship is confidential. The physicians duty to keep information private and confidential derives from ancient physician oaths, presently unchanged at their core, and from more recent legal recognition that an individual has the right to keep those things private which he desires to be kept private. Rules of the physician-patient confidentiality and other doctrines protect ones' privacy.
Ethical confidentiality in healthcare means patients have the right to have medical information reserved private that includes any personal and identity information. The responsibility of ethical confidentiality forbids health care providers from releasing information about the patient’s health to others without consent. Providers and health care organizations are required to take precautions for ensuring only individuals with authorized access.
They should be made aware of the validity and the quality of the research along with increasing their trust in medical research (Lecouturier, 2008). The research must be done ethically by educating the public about the value of the research, scientific validity, fair subject selection, and respect to the participants. It would be the duty of the hospitals who are involved in the research practices to develop protocols for making the patients aware that their medical information may sometimes be used for research by explaining the reasons and ensuring safeguards. The public must be made aware that only high quality professionals that can maintain privacy and confidentiality and who have respect for human beings will be allowed in handling sensitive and private patient information in the research studies. Having the public well informed of the purposes of research would give them a better understanding and a better likely hood of participating to the idea of research (Lecouturier,
In addition to respect the autonomy of the patient, physician’s obligation is to ensure that the medical intervention has benefit for the patient and the harm is minimal (Milanifar, Larijani, Paykarzadeh, Ashtari, & Akhondi, 2014). There is an obvious conflict between duty of confidentiality and duty of mandatory reporting. Professional confidentiality is one of the basic components in building a constant physician-patient relationship. In physician-patient relationship, keeping patient’s secrets and maintaining confidentiality is a legal and ethical duty, and disclosure of such secrets is mainly through specific statutes. Thus, there are a number of situations where breach of confidentiality is permitted in different legal systems. One of
Ethics is the concept of right and wrong and thus it is difficult to come to a universal standpoint as to what should be right and wrong. In the context of the medical field, professionals are constantly engaged in accessing very delicate and sensitive information about people and patients. Thus, such professionals are regularly facing the circumstances in regards to concepts such as confidentiality and privacy. Keeping such private and sensitive information confidential can be a challenge both legally and ethically (Boylan, 2013). When we mean a challenge ethically, we refer to the concept of whether such private information can be easily shared
All medical professionals should abide to patient confidentiality within the legal set of guidelines. Patient-physician confidentiality builds a relationship of trust within the doctor and patient environment. A patient can feel open and safe within this environment. This is an important factor of healthcare and without it there would be a lack of treatment towards the wellbeing of patients. Various arguments have been made to support the decision to keep patient-physician confidentiality a must in the healthcare setting.
The ethical issue presented here is a real case on ethical study that most of the medical professionals face during their work .It is an ideal case that characterizes the present day society given that the doctors have to make a decision regarding the available options. The fact that the patient, Sarah, has a deadly disease and any wrong decision will complicate her situation, the decision will be made based on the information that the doctor will provide her. Therefore, the doctor has
When practicing medicine it is very important to be ethical in the decisions the healthcare staff makes for the patient. There are some instances that patients cannot always choose for themselves, or have difficulty consisting for a child. It is important then that the medical staff makes the best decisions regarding that individual’s health. This is when
Every person has the right of keeping his/her personal information confidential especially about medical conditions. Medical information should be restricted only to the concerned doctor who is authorized to maintain the health record. However, in certain circumstances it becomes necessary for the physician to break this law if it is for the benefit of the patient. Patient confidentially can be described as; medical information should not be disseminated by the doctor and disclosed to any other person or organization until or unless there are specific circumstances requiring distribution of the information or permission has been obtained from patients for disclosure of information.