Ethical Health Promotion Paper

Ethical Health Promotion Paper

Healthcare professionals are responsible for upholding various ethical standards consistent with the four profound bioethical principles: beneficence, non-maleficence, autonomy, and justice. In this sense, the overarching obligations of healthcare professionals include ensuring that care services benefit patients, averting harm, safeguarding patient autonomy to influence care trajectories, and upholding justice and fairness when delivering care. One of the ethical issues prevailing in the current healthcare systems is the need to ensure patients’ healthcare data security, privacy, and confidentiality. According to Tariq & Hackert (2019), healthcare professionals use wireless networks to store patient health information (PHI) and electronic health records (EHRs). These processes expose information to various security threats, including cybercrimes and unauthorized access. It is essential to note that the subsequent failure to safeguard patient data privacy, security, and confidentiality attracts legal and ethical consequences, including commercialization of consumer information, lawsuits, regulatory scrutiny, and patient dissatisfaction. Therefore, healthcare professionals should implement all data safeguards like administrative, physical, and technical mechanisms.

The Role of Healthcare Professionals in Ensuring Data Privacy, Security, and Confidentiality

From a personal perspective, healthcare professionals can play a forefront role in safeguarding patient data privacy, security, and confidentiality because they interact with health informatics systems and understand the tenets of information interoperability and management. In the same breath, the Hippocratic oath establishes the need to adhere to all ethical standards regardless of the prevailing circumstances. Another contention that validates the role of healthcare professionals in safeguarding patient data privacy, security, and confidentiality is the knowledge of potential adverse consequences, including regulatory and professional implications such as licensure revocation, suspensions, lawsuits, and economic losses.

The current literature underscores the widespread role of healthcare professionals in safeguarding data privacy, security, and confidentiality. According to Abuhammad et al. (2020), healthcare providers should protect patient data by practicing ethics when sharing information, obtaining informed consent from patients before transferring data, and participating in training programs to familiarize themselves with advanced measures for safeguarding data privacy, security, and confidentiality, and signing an annual non-disclosure agreement. In the same breath, Abouelmehdi et al. (2018) argue that healthcare professionals should participate in all strategies for safeguarding data, including information authentication, data encryption, masking, and frequent monitoring and auditing. These strategies avert potential legal, professional, and economic ramifications of violating data privacy policies.

Ethical Theories and Codes that Support the Need to Protect Patients’ Information

Undeniably, it is essential to analyze the ethics of safeguarding patient data privacy, security, and confidentiality from the perspective of various ethical theories and nursing codes. According to Biagetti et al. (2020), the three ethical theories that influence healthcare processes are deontological ethics, consequentialist, and virtual ethics. Deontology emphasizes the relationship between duty and the morality of human actions. In this sense, this perspective overlooks the action’s consequences for human welfare. When using deontological ethics, it is possible to argue that healthcare professionals are responsible for protecting patient information because it is morally good to do so regardless of the potential consequences of the action.

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Secondly, consequentialist ethics focuses on the outcomes of an action. In this sense, an action is morally good if it results in the best possible consequences (Biagetti et al., 2020). This theory can support the morality of safeguarding patient data privacy, security, and confidentiality because it results in patient satisfaction, averts potential legal consequences, and supports dignified care. Finally, virtual ethics emphasizes individual character than one’s duty and the need to bring about the best outcomes. As a result, it is possible to argue that healthcare professionals should protect patient information to embody virtuous character traits regardless of whether they are professionally responsible or if safeguarding data would result in the best outcomes.

From the perspective of ethical codes, the obligation to protect patient information falls under provision 3 of the American Nurses Association (ANA) code of ethics for nurses. Haddad & Geiger (2021) argue that this provision requires healthcare professionals to promote, advocate for, and protect patients’ rights, health, and safety. It is essential to understand all aspects of participation, including informed consent and all privacy guidelines regarding patient care and patient identifiers.

Conclusion

Ensuring patient data privacy, security, and confidentiality is a profound ethical issue in the current healthcare systems. Failing to adhere to data privacy guidelines can trigger legal, ethical, and economic consequences, including lawsuits, potential commercialization of consumer information, cybercrimes, and financial losses. Therefore, healthcare professionals are responsible for implementing all data safeguards, including technical, administrative, and physical strategies to protect patient information from unauthorized access and other data violations. The three theories of ethics (deontology, consequentialist, and virtual ethics) and provision 3 of the American Nurses Association (ANA) ethical codes for nurses justify the need to protect patient information.

References

Abouelmehdi, K., Beni-Hessane, A., & Khaloufi, H. (2018). Big healthcare data: Preserving security and privacy. Journal of Big Data, 5(1). https://doi.org/10.1186/s40537-017-0110-7

Abuhammad, S., Alzoubi, K. H., Al-Azzam, S. I., & Karasneh, R. A. (2020). Knowledge and practice of patients’ data sharing and confidentiality among nurses in Jordan. Journal of Multidisciplinary Healthcare, Volume 13, 935–942. https://doi.org/10.2147/jmdh.s269511

Biagetti, M. T., Gedutis, A., & Ma, L. (2020). Ethical theories in research evaluation: An exploratory approach. Scholarly Assessment Reports, 2(1), 1–9. https://doi.org/10.29024/sar.19

Haddad, L. M., & Geiger, R. A. (2021). Nursing ethical considerations. StatPearls Publishing. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK526054/

Tariq, R. A., & Hackert, P. B. (2019). Patient confidentiality. StatPearls Publishing. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK519540/

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Find a scholarly, peer-reviewed article no more than four years old that discusses an ethical health promotion-related issue. Use the WCU library databases to search for appropriate articles.

In your paper:

Briefly summarize the presented issue.
Describe your thoughts on the role health care professionals should play in resolving the ethical issue.
Provide specific theories and refer to specific ethical codes to support your position.