Question

Chapter 23 – Nursing Informatics

Complete the following Critical Thinking Exercises

1.   Identify the ethical issues of personal privacy and this is affected by the availability of electronic health-care information.

2.   Discuss how the design of equipment increases or decreases error rates.

3.   Discuss uses of telehealth for patient teaching and monitoring of home health clients.?

4.   Describe your view of technology in health care in the year 2030.

5.   List all the pieces of data you had to give at your last visit to the doctor or hospital. Was all of the information necessary for your care? Who needed the information? How was the information recorded or transmitted?

Answer 1

1).

Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) established several privacy rules and regulations for health care profession about the patient confidentially and transferring their information through electronic communications. Branching the rules of patient confidentiality results in immediate termination of the employee.

Patient’s concerns about confidentiality or privacy is one of the primary disadvantages of EMR (electronic medical record). Patients are hesitant to accept EMR system because they think that there will be no control over viewing their health records. But the EMRs are only acceptable with specific passwords and user identification (ID).

All employees in a medical facility should not access the patient’s information just because the individual is a patient at the clinic. No one should access the data that is not required for providing patient care. Unnecessary access of healthcare data results in breaching the rule of confidentiality and also leads to patient discrimination.