The Law Of Patient Confidentiality

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.

The HIPAA Privacy Rule identifies the authentic need for public health specialists and others accountable for safeguarding public health and safety to have contact to secure health evidence to carry out their public health task. This rule identifies that public health reports made by protected persons are an imperative resource of recognizing dangers to the health and safety of the public as a whole, as well as persons. The rule also licenses protected objects to unveil threatened health material without approval for known public health devotions. To improve and uphold the public's health, deterrent programs and events are needed. The public health system emphases on prevention through population founded health advancement and public services

The patient described in this paper will be referred to as Jonathan Toews to ensure patients confidentiality. Jonathan Toews, is a sixty three year old man, born on August 23rd 1956, and lives with his eldest son. He was married two times and has three children, two children from his first marriage and one from his second. He lives in northern Ontario but originally was not born here, he moved here shortly following his second divorce. He is of Italian decent and is a practicing catholic. The patient weights 95kgs, is 178cm tall and has a body mas index (BMI) of 28.3. He said he used to play soccer when he was younger but since does not keep active or get the recommended amount of daily activity. Jonathan says he smokes around one pack or cigarettes a day and has a alcoholic drink roughly three to four drinks per week, he also describes that he eats fast food a few times a week. The patient now has congestive heart failure as a consequence of his MI. He was transferred from another hospital at the beginning of November and currently is waiting for more testing before he can be discharged from the hospital or moved to another facility. The patient has some known comorbidities that can exacerbate his CHF, this includes smoking, obesity, and noncompliance with medications.

In order for medicine to be practiced and therapy to be effective patients must be able to trust their health care provider. For example, a patient of Dr. Edgell was a prisoner in a secure hospital following conviction for killing five people and wounding several others. He made application to a mental health tribunal to be transferred to a less secure unit. Dr. Edgell was asked to provide a confidential expert opinion that they hoped would show that the patient was no longer a danger to the public. However Dr. Edgell was of the opinion that in fact this patient (W) was still very dangerous. W’s application was withdrawn. Dr. Edgell, knowing that his opinion would not be included in the patient’s notes, sent a copy to the medical director of the hospital and to the Home Office. The patient brought an action for breach of confidence. The court of Appeal held that the breach was justified in the public interest, on grounds of protection of the public from danger. The Court Judge said the risk must be ‘real, immediate and serious’ (Beauchamp & Childress, 2001). There are ethical and legal implications for a confidentiality breach.

What are the roles of respect and dignity in the American Psychological Association Ethics Code?

With the increasing popularity of physician "scorecards" that are so easily located online, there has been some concern as to whether they represent an accurate picture of the physician to whom the report card belongs. While it is certainly important to know about the physician one is going to see, the scorecards may not be fair and balanced. More people complain when something goes wrong than praise when something goes right (Survey, 2011). Because that is the case, the scorecards often include ratings from people who were less than satisfied with the physician while not including anything from those who thought the physician was adequate or even above average. Certainly some people who were happy with the service provided will mention it, but the percentage is much lower than those who will go online to complain about a physician and "warn" other people not to use his or her services (Survey, 2011). This is well worth considering when looking at physician scorecards.

The main focus of the article is to look at the absolute value of patients’ confidentiality. Blightman et al. look at the pros and cones of breaking patient’s confidentiality and conclude that a breached of confidentiality is in order when it is necessary to obtain consent, as required by law, or when it is in the best interest of the public. The article is useful to my subject, since it examines in details the main issues involving the safeguard of patients’ information. In addition, the authors define confidential information, looks at breaching confidentiality for consent, audits, protection of children, disclosure to family and friends, statutory disclosure, prevention of crime, public interest, public safety, public health, and disclosure to the media. The paper publication is Continuing Education in Anaesthesia, Critical Care & Pain, which s a joint publication of the British Journal of Anaesthesia and The Royal College of Anaesthetists in the UK. It is also the official journal of The Faculty of Pain Medicine and The College of Anaesthetists of Ireland. Publication in such an esteemed journal requires utterly scrutinized of reliability and credibility of the information provided. I found the article educational and thorough in its coverage of aspects of breach of patient information. It is also well written and easy to understand.

A patient’s dignity must be protected. All patients must be treated with the same care to have justice in the medical field. The care for the patient requires non-maleficence. A procedure done must always have the benefits outweigh the harms. Through medical experience I have encounter cases where the harm would outweigh the benefits of the patients. The first case I found myself contemplating and eventually asking clarification was “Why particular myocardial infarctions get transfer to surgery?” From my experience when a code heart is activated, after expedited treatments, the patient goes into catheterization laboratory for surgery. My attending physician went ahead and explained that the benefits must outweigh the risks. Due to the patient’s

Doctors can also come with great excuses as to what happened to the victim. The victim could have been a patient

This essay will discuss why confidentiality is important within nursing practice and the reasons why a registered nurse and student nurse are accountable and to whom they are accountable to in relation to patient care. It will further discuss patient’s rights in relation to law.

According to Teitelbaum (2012), “the general legal rule is that physician–patient relationships are specific to “spells of illness” and that past treatment is not tantamount to an existing physician–patient relationship”. Therefore, legally the physician- patient relationship is established or begins each time an individual returns to the doctor for an appointment and basically ends with each appointment. Although this is the general legal rule, there seems to be a number of other ways in which the physician - patient relationship is defined and determined to be established or not. These definitions can vary due to federal laws, state laws and due to public health insurance programs.

Symptoms/Focus: Mother expressed concern with client becoming angry when she asks client to review his homework assignments. Mother reported that client constantly bites his nails.

First, doctors are usually considered to be very trustworthy people, especially during the time when this book was written. Doctors were looked up to by people. Even today, we put our lives in doctors’ hands because we trust that they will do their best to take care of us and help us get well. People in general trust their doctors and don’t ever think that they would do something to hurt another person because they have dedicated their lives to helping people, not hurting them. But, like we saw in this book, that trust can sometimes be broken. Because of the trust that people put in doctors, no one would ever suspect they would take on criminal activity. That means, when and if they do, they have a better chance of getting away with it, at least for a longer period of time, because no one would suspect them at first. Just like in this book, Julia was dead for two years before anyone thought it might be Sir Roylott who may have done something to her.

Medical cases that concern confidentiality are not always cut and dry, adding family to the mixture causes even more turmoil and confusion as it applies to patient-doctor confidentiality. In the case of Carlos R. (who is HIV positive), and his sister Consuela who is acting as a care giver; I believe that the doctor should maintain patient-doctor confidentiality and respect the wished that Consuela not be told about the HIV diagnosis.

Health care providers should be held responsible to patients even if it is implied contract situation if medical practice occur due their negligence, but if there is no mistakes of physician they should not be held responsible. According to the article “Is this a real doctor-patient relationship”, doctors are responsible for patient’s care, especially when malpractices happen. In this situation relationship can be based in individual case. If doctors are hired by third party to give opinion, that are not considered as doctor-patients relationship. However, if there is serious life threatening condition is discovered its physician duty to let the patients know, because failure to not letting this information will be considered gross negligence. (Francis,