Ethical and Legal Aspects of Patient Safety

Question 1 

Keeping patient’s information confidential is essential, but accessing their health records can be granted with appropriate reasons. It is necessary for those who have patient information to clearly understand the laws governing patient confidentiality. A parole officer can obtain information from Stephanie, a human service policy analyst, such as a medical diagnosis of the patient and the place where he was discharged. For Stephanie to give information concerning the parolee, there must be a court order that allows her to disclose the patient’s information without consent. According to the 42 CFR Part 2, information to be used in the healthcare purposes to ensure the safety and security of the patients without their permission can be disclosed to the correctional institutions (Reid et al., 2020) . Parole officers cannot obtain health information without the knowledge of the parolee. In the scenario, Stephanie, a health policy officer, must carefully decide whether she can disclose the patient’s information to the parole officer. The parole can gain information about the patient in various ways. For instance, the client decides to share the information with the officer if the client finishes filling in the complaint consent form. If kelvin, the parolee, authorizes his documents, it would be acceptable for Stephanie to disclose information to the health officer. This will permit the health officer to release the patient's information. An individual has the grounds to sue the parole officer if they disclose his/her information without consent. In the scenario, Stephanie could provide information to the parole officer without revealing Kelvin’s mental status. 

Question 2 

Organizations value their clients’ privacy, hence expecting their human service professions to maintain high confidentiality standards. If the human service profession in an organization disclose information that they should not, there are legal consequences that can be applied to them. There can be the termination of employment of a human service profession found to have disclosed confidential information. This comes into place, especially when the person disclosing the information had signed the confidentiality agreement before starting the job. The human service professional who violates the law becomes a subject to paying civil lawsuits damages due to medical malpractices. Healthcare privacy is important to protect patients' rights with confidential information, physicians, and other professionals from malpractices claim. Disclosing the patient’s confidentiality can lead to repercussions, such as sizeable awards for damages and losing the reputation of the organization. Disclosing information can lead to the prosecution of the organization or the human service professional. If a human service specialist discloses patient’s information and is used for criminal activities, such as theft of propriety information, there can be charges upon him/her, like imprisonment or fines. Organizations should put proper measures for ensuring the employees do not disclose the patient's information without following the right procedures. 

Question 3 

There are ethical issues that the health organizations and the human service professionals face while offering services to their patients. Confidentiality and privacy are major ethical issues; the safety of the patients lies upon the moral and legal imperatives; therefore, the information should be considered private. Disclosing the patient's information could hurt the patients (Kadivar et al., 2017) . This could lead to ethical and legal consequences , such as financial penalties, to the human service professional. There have been laws that govern the release of patients' information. It stipulates the types of information that should be given to the third party and that which should be kept private. 

In the health information records, keeping the patient's information involves protection against authorized access to modify or destroy the patient data's health information. Disclosing the patient's information is meaningful only when the patients gave the right to disclose it. The security of the patient’s information comes into place only when data is protected against accidental, intentional disclosure to an authorized individual. The health care systems are vulnerable to cybersecurity threats in the healthcare industry. By interconnecting the health care information through the internet creates IT issues to the data being kept. It consolidates the essential data in the field, making the data conspicuous to malicious individuals, such as hackers and cybercriminals. Data security and encryption should be established to protect the privacy of the patient’s information against malicious use (RadiologyInfo, 2020) . The medical organizations should out measure to safeguard their systems against online threats; hence they should have a good understanding of the risks available and the protection possible. 

Information use is another ethical issue that arises in healthcare organizations. Health organizations contain highly valuable information, whereby other individual s will be tempted to gain and use the information for their benefit. Technology poses a problem in protecting the privacy of information, such as granting access to records, regulating, and adopting the need to know basis (Stanford, 2019) . This means that the uses are given the right to use the information they access is justifiable. The authentication procedures can also be implemented to identify any user who accesses that organization database, and what type of data was obtained. 

Question 4 

Advancing the healthcare career was a response to meet human needs and mitigate their problems. The social service professionals approve the moral and ethical standards of the profession, improve the patients' and community's well-being, and promote professional development. Other issues that arise in the healthcare facilities related to confidentiality of information are social and political issues. The healthcare organization has social issues for both human service providers and patients. Social values are evaluated based on their values, beliefs, and unique situations. There are various social beliefs, such as religious issues, vaccination in children, and end of life. An example of social concern is when some parents refuse to vaccinate their children of a disease that the modern disease can heal hence making it more robust. Human service professionals are always informed about these issues and how they affect communities (NOHS, n.d.) . They help educate the community members about the effects of these social issues and their impacts on individuals' lives . The political issues affect healthcare spending, where healthcare organizations have increased the number of patients, recruiting more staff and investing in new technologies. 

References 

Kadivar, M., Manookian, A., Ashari, F., Niknafs, N., Okazi, A., & Zarvani, A. (2017, December 30). Ethical and legal aspects of patient safety: a clinical case report. Journal of Medical Ethics and History Of Medicine, 10 (15). Retrieved from https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6150915/ 

NOHS. (n.d.). Ethical Standards for Human Services and Professionals . Retrieved from National Organization of Human Services: https://www.nationalhumanservices.org/ethical-standards-for-hs-professionals 

RadiologyInfo. (2020, February 19). Patient Privacy and Security of Electronic Medical Information . Retrieved from RadiologyInfo: https://www.radiologyinfo.org/en/info.cfm?pg=article-patient-privacy#:~:text=Physical%2C%20technical%2C%20and%20administrative%20safeguards,of%20encrypted%20storage%20or%20devices 

Reid, D. A., Seitz, D., Friedman, S., Marton, A. R., Khaikin, C., & Gueronniere, G. (2020, April). Fundamentals of 42 CFR Part 2 . Retrieved from Legal Action Center: https://www.lac.org/resource/the-fundamentals-of-42-cfr-part-2 

Stanford. (2019, October 30). Privacy and Information Technology . Retrieved from Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy: https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/it-privacy/