Ethical responsibilities and professional obligations

Ethics in Practicing Nursing

Nursing ethics is an important part of treating patients. It is important for nurses to understand and abide by the nursing ethical code of conduct. The Health Information Privacy Act (HIPAA) protects the patients' rights, and it protects their privacy. Health care professionals must adhere to the rules of HIPAA to ensure the rights of patients are not violated and their privacy is protected. In this paper I will discuss some strategies that can be employed to help nurses stay current in their practices. I will also discuss ethical practices in nursing, including confidentiality and privacy.

According to Silva & Ludwick (2006) ethics is one of the most important issues in nursing. Nurses should consider their ethical responsibilities when working with each patient in every aspect of practice. The fundamentals for practicing nursing are their social responsibility, their respect for the person, their commitment to do no harm and their honor to justice and fairness (Silva & Ludwick, 2006). Nurses should share best practices, discuss ways to help increase higher ethical standards. Nurses, head nurses and others in charge should reward those with high ethical standards.

Patient's confidentiality and privacy is extremely important. With the help of HIPAA regulations, this is an important issue in the health care field. Maintaining patient on computers and transmitting them electronically will help to maintain privacy and confidentiality. Requiring passwords and ensuring computers are locked is important. Ensuring that patient records are not left any place where they can be seen by others or stolen. Ensuring that records are only released to authorized parties. The Nightingale Pledge, the code for nurses stated by the American Nurses Association (ANA) Ethics Committee, and the American Medical Association (AMA) all require nurses to keep the patients information and care confidential and private (Erickson & Millar, 2005).

Nurses should maintain their knowledge and stay current with any new information pertaining to nursing and ethics. Hospitals have head nurses and charge nurses that pass on some of this information. Hospitals periodically offer training classes that update the nurses on techniques, procedures, ethics and training to keep their knowledge current. Nurses can continue to read journals such as American Journal of Nursing, Journal of Professional Nursing and Journal of Issues in Nursing. These journals will help nurses stay current with nursing practices. Hospitals can offer more training classes for their nurses, making it mandatory that nurses take additional hours of training each year to ensure they are keeping current with their practices. I have worked in hospitals where during routine meetings there are segments that discuss ethics and best practices. These journals and training would help the nurses gain more information about the profession and get best practices for ensuring patients privacy and confidentially are maintained. It would also help the nurses to maintain a high level of ethical standards.

Conclusion

Nursing is a very delicate and important profession. Patients rely on their nurses for great care, private treatment and confidentiality. It is important that nurses maintain their professional standards and upkeep their knowledge in the field. Ensuring that patients receive the best care is essential. Following the regulations of HIPAA and the other entities nurses are required to ensure patients information are kept confidentially and they are given privacy when treated. This paper addressed some simple strategies that nurses can employ to ensure confidentiality, privacy and higher ethical standards.