discussion post 1
A colleague looked up a cousin’s test results and informed you about having done so. The cousin is very sick and the family, extremely fearful about the potential diagnosis, wanted to see if your colleague could find out in advance to help the cousin’s family. What would you do in this scenario? Are you obligated to report? If so, what steps would you take?
Legal and Ethical Issues for Health Professionals
Pozgar, G. D. (2020). Legal and ethical issues for health professionals (5th ed.). Burlington, MA: Jones and Bartlett Learning. ISBN-13: 9781284144185
Requirements: 200 words
Answer preview
Under the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996 (HIPAA), it is illegal for health professionals to disclose patients’ health information without authorization from patients, the physician, and the management that protects electronic health records (Pozgar, 2020). Based on the established case scenario, it was unethical for my colleague to snoop into a cousin’s health information in favor of the cousin’s family.
In my view, I would inform the family that it is against the code of ethics and federal regulations to breach patients’ information without authorization. I would ensure that the family members know the code of ethics of privacy and confidentiality and the HIPAA regulations to understand the constraints that prevent me from breaching the patient’s data (Pozgar, 2020). Further, I would inform my colleague that it was inappropriate to snoop into the test results
263 words
