Nurses Protecting Patient Privacy

Advocating for Health Care
Morals and ethics are critical parts of the foundation of nursing. Compassion, caring, and advocacy is the main characteristics that each nurse in the nursing profession should possess and evoke each day in the performance of their clinical practice. Just like any other profession, nurses must also operate within ethical standards, professional guidelines and perform their clinical practice in the parameters of the law of their respective state. However, there is a fine line that distinguishes ethics and law, which can get muddles especially within the nursing profession because nurses are not able to ethically agree with the law, but they must adhere to procedures and protocols at the same time. The case scenario presented places Lena is a difficult ethical situation and the nursing code she vowed to honor.
Under the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) it is illegal for a healthcare worker to provide information regarding a patient to anyone else and this includes other healthcare professionals in unless they are required to do so in the course of performing their work and medical treatment (Sarpatwari, Kesselheim, Malin, Gagne, & Schneeweiss, 2014). Therefore, this means that Lena cannot share the information with her sister under the HIPPA rules. However, this does not prohibit Lena who is a community health care nurse who has specialized in the field of HIV and AIDS from cautioning their family or loved ones about the risks of the disease. Lena can also offer to assist her sister to get her tested or seek treatment options for such a condition. Lena should educate the patient regarding the Partner Notification Program, that encourages a person who has tested positive for HIV infection to refer any person they might have had any sexual relations with or have shared drug injecting equipment with for counseling and HIV testing. This would encourage the patient to be responsible and in this case, the patient would inform Lena's sister and she would know of boyfriend’s HIV status. Using this specific code, the health department is educating the patient and encouraging them to let his/her partners know about their status.
According to the American Nurses Association, there are provisions in its Code of Ethics that specifies how nurses are required to handle themselves within the clinical practice. In this case study, Lena should first executer her duties as she would with any other of her patient's. She should be considerate of the ethical standards, and scope of practice just in the same way she would when dealing with any of her patients (Lachman, 2009). This would allow her to remain professional and ensure that she does not violate any of the ethical nursing codes. The Code of Ethics was established to govern the behavior of a nurse and offer guidelines on how they should conduct their practice. Following the Code of Ethics will ensure that Lena remains professional in her work and she advices the patient accordingly without getting emotional and making outbursts or revealing information she is not authorized or required.
There is also a conflict of interest in Lena handling the case. She is already biased because the patient is related to the sister and she might not be able to perform her duty in a responsible manner. Once she finds out the information and establishes there is a conflict of interest, she should request another nurse to handle the case. Currently, her private interests are interfering with her professional interests and this would make it hard for her to perform her duties. Lena would not have the client's best interests at heart when dealing with the patient.


References
Lachman, V. D. (2009). Practical use of the nursing code of ethics: Part I. MedSurg Nursing, 18(1), 55.
Sarpatwari, A., Kesselheim, A. S., Malin, B. A., Gagne, J. J., & Schneeweiss, S. (2014). Ensuring patient privacy in data sharing for postapproval research: Mass Medical Soc.