As oversight staffing budgets are reduced and redundancy is addressed, many states will follow Pennsylvania's lead. Concept Discussion

In our current setting, healthcare organizations are legislatively driven to follow strict disclosure polices in order to shield patient related and other protected data yet still these facilities and staff will be required to provide superior customer service. Thus, the information age has strained governmental legislation bolstering individual patient's privacy. "In the past decade, we have undergone a dramatic transformation in the way we shop, bank, and go about our daily business -- changes that have resulted in an unprecedented proliferation of records and data." (Soloye)

This vast amount of information that has been created or has suddenly become available now requires all new regulations regarding disclosure of medical information. The nursing profession has obviously been affected.

For example, nursing staffs often must get written permission to disclose, discuss or review a patient's situation with a non-immediate family member. In other words, to give nursing staffs permission to use or disclose medical information about a Down syndrome newborn with the patient's family or friends as needed, the new mother must revoke her own privacy in writing.

Nursing staffs must be fully cognizant if and when a patient revokes the permission to use or disclose his or her medical information. There is a fine line associated with previous foreclosures made with permission which creates a new documentary crisis. Nurses will be required to retain even more detailed records of care provided and often special footnotes will be required in the nursing logs when a revocation has occurred.

The new Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996 is the legislative attempt to create a semblance of patient care privacy regulations. The objective of this act aims to assist the entire healthcare industry with the electronic data overload but just as critical the act will address all healthcare related data such as nursing logs and other detail care accounts. Of course the most crucial issues will be related to computer data and a great deal of the...

The Literature Search Process will follow the guidelines of a detail oriented approach for gathering disclosure and nursing related data. The information would be acquired through various sources including:
Physical Searches: searching core journals

Database Search: electronic databases both library and internet

Studies: Student journals and Studies

Internet: web page studies

Personal Interviews: experts and relevant organizations pertaining to disclosure legislation and implementation

The objective of the detailed search would be to acquire as mush relevant information pertaining to nursing and the affects of new disclosure polices, legislation and protocol.

Determine the Defining Attributes

To clearly define attributes associated with the aspects of disclosure is a major objective of this foreshadow. First and foremost, typical nurse's obligations regarding disclosure and data privacy protection will be legally mandated and therefore they must be clearly defined. The attributes associated with disclosure principles must describe an entire industry's, individual facility's including private healthcare professional's offices, as well as any faculty or staff that must practice and therefore enter information into a medical chart, MDS or other facility record.

If one was to consider how disclosure legislation has affected nursing, consider an abused pregnant woman who was in to receive information about prenatal care. The process of gathering and reporting the data about aspects of abuse of a pregnant woman would be necessary. However, it is important to note that disclosure polices should not interfere with day-to-day operations. In other words, nursing practitioners are still required to perform their medical activities such as: prevent or control disease,