Ethical Violation of Healthcare Informatics

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Table of Contents

Ethical Violation Case
Ethical Dilemma
Possible Alternatives
Ethical Arguments
Investigation and Evaluation of Ethical Alternatives
Chosen Alternative
Conclusion
References

Ethical Violation Case

Judie is a nurse student in her final year of study. She works part-time at a clinic that utilizes EHR for all patients with an opportunity of remote access. Judie’s friend is also a student and her major is pharmacology. She needs data about broad spectrum antibiotic prescription for her final course project and Judie promises to extract the necessary information from EHRs without mentioning any personal patient information. However, Judie is too busy combining work and studies and she has no time to collect the necessary information. Thus, she invites her friend to a clinic and gives her a tablet with access to all EHRs.

Ethical Dilemma

On the one hand, Judie feels responsibility to her friend, whom she has promised to provide data for the course project. The deadline is short, and the friend takes a risk of getting an unsatisfactory mark. On the other hand, she violates both ethical and legal principles of using EHR because patient information cannot be released to other people without patient’s permission (Jamshed, Ozair, Sharma, & Aggarwal, 2015). Also, Judie violates the policy of clinic, which does not allow spreading patient information with third parties who are not employed at the clinic. Still, since Judie’s friend is also a healthcare professional and needs data for research, the nurse probably did not violate the code of ethics of the American Nurses Association.

Possible Alternatives

Other alternatives possible in the case are as follows. First of all, Judie could have planned her activities so that she could extract the necessary information for her friend. Secondly, she could have advised her friend to request permission from the clinic administration and receive legitimate access to EHRs.

Ethical Arguments

The ethical argument for this case is grounded on the utilitarian approach. It implies that the action is considered ethical if it brings good for the greatest number of people (McGonigle, & Mastrian, 2018). Thus, Judie’s actions cannot be considered ethical since the fact that she provided access to EHRs to her friend could lead to data loss and leak of confidential personal information about patients of the clinic.

Investigation and Evaluation of Ethical Alternatives

The first alternative (to extract data by herself) will not lead to any policy violations because the information necessary for a friend will not contain any personal data. In the best case, Judie can have enough time to follow her promise. In the worst case, she fails to provide information and her friend gets a poor grade. The second alternative (to advise a friend to request access to patient records from administration) will not imply any violations. In the best-case scenario, a friend gets access to information. In the worst-case scenario, the administration refuses to provide access and the friend has to change the topic of her research or find another source of data.

Chosen Alternative

The most beneficial alternative is the second one. In case Judie advises her friend request access from the clinic administration immediately after she asked her for help, her friend will have an opportunity to change the topic or search for information from another source before it is too late. Moreover, Judie will not violate any ethical codes or policies.

Conclusion

The case under consideration is an example of a wrong ethical decision of a healthcare professional. Judie considered personal obligations to be more significant than professional code of ethics. Such a decision can lead to negative consequences since personal patient data are managed by an unauthorized individual.

References

Jamshed, N., Ozair, F., Sharma, A., & Aggarwal, P. (2015). Ethical issues in electronic health records: A general overview. Perspectives in Clinical Research, 6(2), 73-76. Web.

McGonigle, D., & Mastrian, K. (2018). Nursing informatics and the foundation of knowledge (4th ed.). Burlington, MA: John and Bartlett Learning.

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