Question

 

What is the nurse's responsibility in protecting patient information in the electronic record? What should the nurse do? How can you tell who accessed the patient record?

Answer 1

According the ethical standards of care and patient services in nursing it is the duty of the nurse to keep all patient information confidential. Use of technology has advanced the methods of recording and accessing the patient records and now the electronic health recording systems are used for this process. Use of these systems surely has enhanced the quality of care and made the recording and accessing of patient information easier and better but it is still the duty of a nurse to safeguard the confidentiality of patient's information through these systems.

It is seen that most of the health recording systems used in the facilities are password protected that are provided to the nurses with their own username. The nurses are responsible to protect the data they record in these system by making sure their password protected systems are completely safe and secure and by not sharing their password or username with any one even not other colleagues. It is the responsibility of the nurse if in case any patient information is to be accessed it is their responsibility to gather patient consent and achieve the information from the system and share it to the authorized individual.

The overall security of the system was authority handled by secured password protection and even at some places the bio-metrics are used of nurses that ensure high levels of safety. This overall secure system makes it easier to access who has accessed the patient records. as the use of password, particular domain and bio-metrics can be achieved on reevaluating the process by the software designers to see who is responsible to access the records and the misconduct or violation of confidentiality in such case can be easily controlled.