...Administrative Ethics Paper Dwyn Francis HCS/335 July 28, 2014 Melissa Green Administrative Ethics Paper In the administrative health care setting there is a continuous presence of ethical issues embedded in everyday activities. The health care administrator has responsibilities to self, to the organization, to the clientele served by the organization, and to the employees who provide services at the organization. With the growth of information systems one ethical concern that continually presents itself to the administrator is confidentiality of information. Confidential information refers to facts that are private, secret, or privileged. Confidential information for the administrator in the health care setting extends beyond a patients’ medical information to broader information systems that encompass the organization as a business and a workplace. Managing confidential information within the health care system requires ethical awareness, knowledge, and decision-making skill. In order to avoid a “cynical view” by administrators of the importance of ethically managing confidential information, increased education and discussion of these issues need to take place. Hopefully, through discussion, retrospective analysis, and ethics education, innovative ways to effectively answer difficult questions concerning confidentiality will emerge. Under what circumstances confidential information should be disseminated is an issue that most administrators encounter sometime in their...
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...Administrative Ethics The health care field is surrounded by ethics policies and guidelines; there is just no escaping it. Health care administration is an area where ethical policies are not just guidelines, but instead, they are very specific and strict rules. Health care administration employees have to be knowledgeable about the ethics that surround the medical industry, including patient care and confidentiality. The administrative side of health care follows all the paper work side, including patient charts and data, billing, insurance, deductibles, and medical history. With all this knowledge being accessible, it is imperative that the administration side understands the ethics surrounding health care inside and out so that patient confidentiality is not hindered. A health care administrator has a responsibility to one’s self, the organization they are employed by, as well as the consumer and fellow employees to uphold and abide by ethical guidelines. “With the growth of information systems one ethical concern that continually presents itself to the administrator is confidentiality of information” (Badzek, 1998). For an administrator, confidential information is not just simply private information, but also information that includes the organization as a business and place of employment. Being responsible for this medical information means being able to manage and be aware of ethical procedures and being able to make the hard decisions accordingly. Breaching...
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...Administrative Ethics Heather Holcomb University of Phoenix Ethics: Health Care and Social Responsibility HCS 335 Deborah Laughon February 5, 2012 Administrative Ethics Abstract of Article: Administrative Ethics and Confidentiality/Privacy Issues This article presents a case study highlighting the conflict between an individual’s right to privacy and the rights of patients and staff to know when a professional standard has been breached. The process by which the administrator determines a course of action is reviewed in the context of workplace realities through an ethical analysis. The growth of information systems and the increased involvement of third parties in decision-making have created new issues regarding confidentiality and the release of sensitive information for health care personnel who are in a position of public trust. The issues facing nursing administrators are complex, and of particular concern are the conflicting demands of providing quality care with limited resources. The authors identify strategies to deal with the workplace issues that give rise to the potential for abuse as well as the strategies to support an impaired colleague who attempts to reenter the workforce (Badzek, Mitchell, Marra, & Bower, 1998). Introduction When asking the general public what health care ethics and health care privacy mean, most will relate that they are about protecting patients. Health care ethics and health care privacy do exist to protect patients and...
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...Administrative Ethics HCS/335 August 13, 2012 Administrative Ethics The code of ethics for health care administrator outlines how they must behave when it comes to their professional relationship with colleagues, employees, and patients. They state that the administrator must always be respectful and honest, follow all rules and regulations, never exploit any professional relationship, and never discriminate or allow discrimination against patients ("American Academy of Medical Administrators", 2012). Administrative ethical issues continue to occur despite having the code of ethics in place. This paper will reflect on an ethical dilemma between administration and an employee as well as, discuss the solution to the dilemma. Administrative Issue A registered nurse, working as a flex pool nurse in a hospital, diverts narcotics to reduce anxiety and stress in her job. She signed out medication to patients that had not requested it and she substituted saline for drugs in syringes. When her actions were discovered she was confronted by her own administrator and the administrator of the unit she was assigned too. The nurse confessed to her behavior and asked for help, which was granted with a leave of absence and rehabilitation. The administrative issue at hand is whether the administrators should disclose confidential information concerning an employee to safeguard the patients and promote competent nursing care (Badzek, Mitchell, Marra, & Bower, 1998). The...
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...Administrative Ethics Paper DeCarlos Green HCS/335 4/23/2014 Administrative Ethics Paper Patient confidentiality has become a trending topic in the Health Care industry and in the news. Many organizations have placed patient confidentiality at the top of their important “to do” lists. The United States government is really emphasizing the importance of patient privacy and they are also cracking down on facilities that are not abiding by HIPPA’s regulations. Stiff fines and penalties are being administered to organizations that are found not to be in compliance with HIPPA regulations. I’ve recently read an article about a breach in patient privacy at Kaiser Permanente. Kaiser Permanente is one of the nation’s largest not-for-profit health plans, serving approximately 9.1 million members, with headquarters in Oakland, Calif("Fast Facts About Kaiser Permanente", 2014). Issue and its impact on the population it affects most The issue that has occurred at Kaiser Permanente is that their server has been infected with a malicious malware. The breach of the organization has been going on for quite some time. The organization thinks that the server has been infected ever since October of 2011; the breach was not discovered until February of 2014. This is quite some time for a breach in security to go undetected. The breach of the “secure” server has affected over 5,000 patients. All of the patients protected health information was on the server. This breach mostly affects...
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...Administrative Ethics Paper HIV status disclosure is part of huge debates because of its potential for HIV prevention and its link to privacy and confidentiality. In order to play a role in prevention it’s important for a person to disclose and disclosure is a way to open up to the HIV epidemic. A lot of research has been done and there are many current articles available to read. I have chosen three articles about the research done and its affects on HIV/AIDS patients who are reluctant to disclose they have HIV/AIDS. HIV/AIDS Patients Reluctant To Tell Partners Reluctance for HIV patients to tell their partners about positive test results is becoming a more common ethical problem. New York City Department of Health and Mental Services had a great idea in a study I read about in which field testing combined with counseling promoted the patient to tell their partner. According to (Renaud, T. C., Wong, M. R., Bocour, A., Udeagu, C. N., Pickett, L., Alt, E. N., & ... Begier, E. M. (2011) the studies on disclosure that were reviewed showed that, first although that disclosure is difficult, people keep their HIV status completely secret. Levels of disclosure are generally low, but middle levels are documented among certain populations.” Pregnant women were more likely the ones to disclose their HIV/AIDS status. Proposed Solutions Solutions that I would propose would be implemented would be for example field testing using the rapid test. The OraSure HIV-1 test is found...
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...Administrative Ethics Shannon Camacho September 16, 2013 Rosalina Nava-Bermudez There are a plethora of issues concerning patient privacy, confidentiality, and HIPAA. Unfortunately, these are issues that have arisen more recently; patient privacy and confidentiality wasn’t a largely disputed issue before the introduction and increase of health information technology implementation and usage. According to the Center for Democracy and Technology, “Health information technology has tremendous potential to improve health care quality and reduce costs while empowering patients to play a greater role in the management of their own care. At the same time, however, electronic storage and exchange of personal health information poses risks to privacy. Unaddressed, privacy concerns can stand in the way of realizing the benefits of health IT, for neither patients nor providers will make full use of a system they do not trust.” One has no choice but to take the two into consideration: do the speed, accuracy, and reduced cost of health information technology outweigh the potential privacy concerns? As stated in a brief article published by the National Center for Biotechnology Information, “The combination of these technologies will improve the quality of health care by making it more personalized and reducing costs and medical errors. While there are benefits to technologies, associated privacy and security issues need to be analyzed to make these systems...
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...Administrative Ethics When it comes down to ethical issues involving administration, some aspects always seem to be overlooked. On May 17, 2011, Ricardo Alonzo-Zaldivar wrote an article for azcentral.com relating to the vulnerability of electronic medical records and its effects on patient privacy. In this document I will be discussing the issue on patient privacy and confidentiality. I will be touching base on the population it affects, arguments used within this article that support electronic medical records, ethical and legal issues involved. Along with the issues I will be discussing the managerial responsibilities and proposed solutions that may help in maintaining patient privacy under regulation that are being proposed within this article. The issue on patient privacy is nothing new and out of the ordinary within the health care field. According to the American Medical Association’s (AMA) Council on Ethical and Judicial Affairs the main purpose of a healthcare professional’s ethical duty is to maintain patient confidentiality and to allow the patient to be able to make a truthful disclosure of their personal information to the physician placing their trust that the physician will protect the confidential nature of the information disclosed. Unfortunately, physicians cannot entirely control the access to electronic medical records. If patients distrust and have the anxiety that their medical records will not be private, they might tend to tell their doctors less, or...
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...Administrative Ethics Amber Hesler HCS/335 November 14, 2011 William Bross Administrative Ethics The Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act also known by the acronym HIPAA was enacted in 1996 (Highmark, 2011). The intention of the new set of laws was to improve the efficiency and effectiveness of the health care system of the United States (Highmark, 2011). HIPAA affected everyone with any involvement in the health care field; although those affected the most were those involved through the administrative process. The administrative process became filled with new standards and requirements for the transmission of electronic health care information (Highmark, 2011). The enactment of the HIPAA law was designed to protect patients and their private health information known as PHI. Even though the intention was to improve the health care system while saving money it has become very costly if violated administratively. As a result of the HIPAA act the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) needed to impose another act known as the Health Information Technology for Economic and Clinical Health act (HITECH) as a way of ensuring enforcement of HIPAA (HHS Press Office, 2011). This act allows Health and Human services to impose a civil monetary penalty (CMP) to reinforce the social and legal responsibilities of health care workers. The United States Department of Health and Human Services penalized Cignet Health management 4.3 million for violating the privacy...
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...Administrative Ethics Paper Dennis Lang HCS/335 May 2,2011 Lawerence Fergus Administrative Ethics Paper On January 8, 2011 nineteen people were shot, six fatally, one of the survivors was United States Representative Gabrielle Gifford. She is in critical condition from a gunshot wound to the head. Her political status and the nature of the horrible crime is a national topic. This incident carries it’s own ethical issues with second amendment gun rights and public safety. Representative Gifford’s medical information was compromised in the weeks that followed. The information and opinion presented here will discuss the success of the HIPPA laws governing the security and safety of patient medical information as exampled in representative Gifford’s case. Individuals private medical information must be protected as that information is dispersed being used to provide high quality healthcare towards the successful outcome for that patient. There is a delicate balance in protecting patient security and the use of medical information in understanding and promoting medical advances for society in general. Individually identifiable health information weather transmitted electronically, paper, or orally is protected health information. Individually identifiable information may be as common as as name, address, social security numbers. When data contains this information ultimate care must be taken in how that information is reviewed either written, electronically, or...
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...Administrative Ethics Misty Sorensen HCS/335 August 19, 2012 Christine Singel Administrative Ethics Patient privacy is the responsibility of the medical organization that treats the patient. Patients have the right to have their medical issues kept private from people that do not need to know the information. The federal government has created the HIPPA policy to help medical organizations understand and follow rules to protect the privacy of the patients that come to the organization. It is important for the organization to make sure that all members of the staff are trained and follow the policies of HIPPA. In some cases organizations may have ethical issues arise involving a patient’s privacy and the confidential information of a patient. Ethical issues arose at the Alexandria VA Medical Center it involved the staff and the administration. The VA Office of Inspector General’s office was called to look into the problems (Garrett, Baillie, & Garrett 2009). The VA Office of Inspector General Office of Healthcare Inspections investigated the possibility of mismanagement of the suicide prevention program at the Alexandria VA Medical Center in Pineville, LA. A confidential complaint against the facility was filed and the allegations made stated that there were over 600 patients on a high risk for suicide list and that the patients were not monitored as required. Privacy and confidentiality rules were not followed in the suicide prevention program. The administration...
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...Administrative Ethics HCS/335 Health Care Ethics and Social Responsibility June 3, 2013 Anthem Blue Cross is a major health insurance provider with approximately 800,000 customers and has more individual policyholders in California than any other insurance provider in the United States ("Anthem BlueCross BlueShield," 2012). Anthem Blue Cross has informed some of its San Francisco base policyholders that their medications will only be available through mail order. A Consumer Watchdog group is working with a patient, for privacy reasons he does not want his identity to be known, to sue Anthem Blue Cross for discrimination. I will discuss the issues and its significance on the most effected population of the policy change, the arguments or facts used to support a proposed solution with Anthem Blue Cross and the Consumer Watchdog group, and the ethical and legal issues reported for administration. I also will explain the managerial responsibilities related to administrative ethical issues, and identify any proposed solutions. Anthem Blue Cross had informed its policyholders that their medications will be only be available by mail if they want them to be paid for. That means patients cannot directly communicate with their pharmacists on a personal basis and pick up their prescriptions at their discretion. HIV/AIDS patients believe that their relationship with their pharmacist is critical to their health care, especially in San Francisco where there are some of the most...
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...ADMINISTRATIVE ETHICS PAPER BY: KASHAUNA ROBINSON CLASS: HCS/335 DUE DATE: NOVEMBER 29. 2010 PROFESSOR: MR. MATHERENE The administrative ethics have many situations that arise when dealing with the different concepts that follow it such as: patient’s privacy, confidentiality, or HIPAA. The administrative ethics have issues with different individuals in the organizations that make it hard for others to make a moral judgment and have good objectives of judgments being made. The two common strategies or views of administration is that many people that are in the administrative position do not want to abide by the ethics codes, so they should resign from the their spot so that they can put someone there who do understand the reasons for the ethics by the administrative codes. When trying to make sure that you have a powerful effective establishment, you must make sure that you find a plan that will produce a policy that would be successful to your company. One of the laws that allows companies and professionals to hire people that are qualified for a certain position in their firm, they are able to come immediately and get an interview, which is called the Affirmative Action. And Equal Employment Opportunity. Administrative code of ethics is almost the same thing as the Affirmative Action because it makes sure that the public administration adjusts their decision making in the way of not having...
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...Administrative Ethics Paper Sarah Falsey HCS/335 October 8, 2012 Leah Alexander Administrative Ethics Paper The topic chosen was Massachusetts General Hospital. This paper will go over the issue and its impact. It will also include arguments or facts to support the proposed solution. We will also touch on the ethical and legal issues involved with the release of 196 patients’ medical information. The issue is that 196 patients’ records at the hospital’s Infectious Disease Associates Practice were left by an employee on the subway. These records contained names, medical record numbers, dates of birth, health insurers and their policy numbers, diagnosis, and names of their providers for 66 patients. The Infectious Disease unit treats people with HIV/AIDS, as well as other infectious diseases. The records were never recovered and were lost on March 9, 2009. The Department of Health and Human Services issued a 1 million dollar fine against the Massachusetts General Hospital because of that breach of patient privacy. The HIPAA privacy rule clearly states that health care providers are required to protect the privacy of patient information through administrative, physical and technical defenses. Massachusetts General agreed to fix this and to take actions to prevent this from happening in the future. They agreed to implement a set of policies and procedures regarding what information is removed from the hospital, training all employees on this procedure, and labeling the...
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...Administrative Ethics Paper Kelly N McCoy HCS/335 May 19, 2014 Melissa Green, MHA Administrative Ethics Paper Safeguarding patient privacy has been a serious problem even with current technology. Not only are “regular” patients at risk; celebrities and politicians are at a greater risk related to the current culture of social media, reality television, and the “need to know” attitude of today’s society. In the past ten years, serious issues with breeches in celebrity and politicians privacy and confidentiality have risen. For example, in 2013, the reality star Kim Kardashian’s and rapper Kayne West’s medical records were inappropriately accessed between June 18th and June 24th, after giving birth to a baby girl at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center (Associated Press, 2013). In order to ensure and safeguard patient privacy and confidentiality, issues related to breaching patient privacy must be addressed. This paper will address the following: 1. Background information in relation to the breach of Kim Kardashian and Kayne West’s privacy. 2. Arguments or specifics used in the article to support the proposed solution. 3. Ethical and legal issues. 4. Managerial responsibilities related to administrative, ethical issues. 4. Solutions to reduce and prevent breaches in patient privacy. Last year, reality star Kim Kardashian and Kayne West’s medical records were wrongly and unauthorized accessed by five employees of Cedar-Sinai Medial Center after the birth of their daughter (Associated...
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