Ethical Implications: Breach of Confidentiality
Grand Canyon University: NRS-437V

Ethical Implications The Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996 (HIPAA) , was made to protect the rights of patients with regard to who could have access to their health information (HHS, 2011). HIPAA is not taken lightly and at the organization this author works, a Confidentiality Agreement is signed yearly to assure that the guidelines are followed. Under certain circumstances, however, an individual’s health information may be disclosed, such as before procedures and doctor’s appointments and these are generally for limited information release and for consent to treat. There are two that caregivers not only can come across, but are mandated to report: concern for public welfare and concern for the safety of other person(s) (University of Washington, 2008). To understand what is expected of them with regards to confidentiality and protection of patient rights, it is the responsibility of the nurse to understand what breach of confidentiality means and to know what information may and may not be shared.
Breach of Confidentiality Breach of confidentiality can happen in a variety of ways, even in a manner a healthcare provider had not intended or was unaware it constituted a violation as serious as such. Some ways in which it can happen are: giving too much information to a person over the telephone claiming to be family, talking about a patient in the cafeteria while eating lunch or even faxing medical records to the wrong fax number (AMA, 2012). Confidentiality is considered one of the key ethical principles, a patient right, and always utilized on a ‘need to know’ basis (Ludwick & Silva, 1999). When violated, it is essentially as if a nurse was stealing from the patient, utilizing something that belongs to that patient without their expressed