NURS 4020 Leadership Competencies In Nursing And Healthcare

HIPAA legal and ethical issues

The Health insurance and portability act (HIPAA) refers to a legislation enacted in the United States in 1966 that provides for privacy and security of medical information. The legislation has 4 main parts which include national identifier requirements, security, requirements and set standards of electronic transfers and privacy. The legislation has 3 major provisions which include reducing administration work load, increasing integrity and portability. This paper focuses privacy as an ethical issue outlined in the legislation and security as a legal issue.

Privacy of information is a necessary ethical aspect of clinical based communication explains McBride, Tietze, Robichaux, Stokes, & Weber, (2018). It is important that health workers uphold higher levels of privacy to protect patient information. This not only upholds the professional ethical requirements but it also increases client satisfaction and patient safety. The security rules extends beyond the privacy rule as it prohibits printing information, altering or deleting information from patient records and database. The security rule has 3 aspects which include technical, physical and administrative security.

Health workers usually violate HIPAA laws in various ways such as through failure to give patients enough information, allowing unauthorized access to information and unprotected storage among other violations. The violation of these laws have various consequences that may involve fines based on the level of negligence, criminal charges and it may also lead to a nurse losing their accreditation credentials making it hard for them to practice argues Westrick, (2016). Some of the ways in which patient privacy and confidentiality can be promoted include through setting a good workplace culture and norms that promotes compliance to laws, effective leadership that checks non-professional acts and through improving health IT to minimize errors that mar result to violation of HIPAA laws.

References:

McBride, S., Tietze, M., Robichaux, C., Stokes, L., & Weber, E. (2018). Identifying and Addressing Ethical Issues with Use of Electronic Health Records. Online Journal of Issues in Nursing, 23(1).

Westrick, S. J. (2016). Nursing students’ use of electronic and social media: Law, ethics, and e-professionalism. Nursing education perspectives, 37(1), 16-22.