Reflection about Confidentiality and Privacy in Healthcare

Personal health information is viewed as data that recognizes a patient and their general
ailment/status or clinical history. Keeping the patient's health information private gives
assurance to the patient from any harm and, also this act serves as a patients’ public protection.
With these acts, it helps remind nurses about their obligations as a professional individual and
protect their public image especially in gaining rapport to the patient. Since being branded as a
nurse who likes to talk about health care information unto others may lose his/her credibility to
gain trust to his/her patient.

Yes, ethics are highly considered and well observed in the part of patient care especially in the
hospital setting. All practices done by the hospital staff ethics and moral values are always
being valued to provide compassionate care to the patient. Although confidentiality has always
been debated in all health care settings, it lies between the nurses decision making whether to
keep the information private or be shared among paramedical and medical staff to make a
better improvement. Having many suggestions, research and brainstorming among medical
staff has a higher chance of offering high quality of care.

As I ponder and reflect on what I had learned in my studies, nurses often required to choose
from among a number of good or the least wrong alternatives to assess and defend the choices
made or actions taken/ especially in the decision-making process. Because nurses are always
faced with ethical issues every day in their work, and dealing with them is very difficult as
sometimes you are weighing the lives of other people. In reality there is some situation where
the nurse faced a dilemma where patient confidentiality is breached in the beneficence of
patient and others.  For example, there was a new patient admitted to the hospital and later you
found out that he was diagnosed with HIV or any other infectious diseases and you told other
staff that he had an infectious disease so as to protect yourselves and others from such
contagion and would definitely prevent other patients from acquiring it. Though confidentiality
has been breached, in this scenario it is still considered acceptable since other health care
providers should be warned, and on the other hand the nurse has been aware as to what extent
of information he/she has been shared.

Even though you have done good for others this action also precludes labeling and
stigmatization on the patient, because in maintaining confidentiality about the patient you are
also protecting him/her against discrimination and stereotyping behaviors of people around. But
I’m also not saying that what the nurse did is wrong.

In light of the situation, the nurse has spared others from acquiring a contagious disease but
confidentiality and privacy should be also very important in patient and staff’s perspective
especially in health care settings. As confidentiality ought to be considered as persistent human
right and paramedical staff is responsible to protect patients' human rights and his/her privacy.
Whether we like it or not when faced with a situation involving autonomy and beneficence,
confidentiality may be questioned and put aside. But I believe in order to build a strong
foundation of nurse-patient relationship with trust and respect, health care providers must be
aware and be wary to what extent of information should be shared in which it does not impede
the patient’s dignity, respect and cause a reason of stigma.