LEGAL AND ETHICAL

ASPECTS
Introduction

In contemporary health care systems, confidentiality and anonymity are highly significant,

particularly in the field of family therapy and childcare. Nowadays, the effect of privacy and

confidentiality in the health care system needs to be investigated. In essence, the issue of privacy

and confidentiality does not only raise ethical but also legal concerns as practitioners in the

healthcare industry are obligated to uphold confidentiality and protect patients' data from

violations (Milholland, 1994). Informed consent is the method by which a fully informed patient

can participate in a research project after being informed of its procedures, risks, and benefits.

Informed consent is a part of the ethical and legal rights that research participants or patients

have. It remains a critical procedure for any research project. The CPR or Electronic Health

Record (EHR) is characterized as an extensive archive, accessible and maintained via the Health

Care Net, of personal health-related records. The sharing of medical photographs and medical

documents in the form of specialized patient reports involves distant diagnostic facilities. Most

healthcare practitioners rely on specialized medical records. It can be available in stationary

hospitals, but also emergency rooms, nursing homes, ongoing service centers, medical services,

laboratories, research facilities, rehabilitation centers. As and where possible, an optimal

computerized medical record should be available. To avoid improper use or modification, data

databases with confidential information must be monitored (Klar, 2004).

a) Privacy & Confidentiality of Patient

Privacy and confidentiality is considered the practice according to which the information of

the patient is to be protected by the health care practitioners. Healthcare practitioners may face a

challenge between protecting children's confidentiality and privacy and families' understandable

need to get data about their children's diagnosis and status. Healthcare professionals should
guarantee that they have sensitive knowledge about patients. Trafficking through the use of

illegal drugs is some criminal activity that a physician may participate in. Upon the realization of

such drug use, the health worker is faced with the dilemma of whether or not to report such cases

to relevant authorities. If they do so, they will be infringing on the patient’s right to privacy and

confidentiality (Olsen, 2008).

Health record security is the privacy and confidentiality of data, which a patient records at

the request of a medical officer and the reception of health care. Information on the patient's

request, condition, and other records on his health and privacy, which have been obtained from

examinations and procedures, prophylactic and recovery is medical confidentiality not subject to

the release.

When a patient applies for medical assistance and accepts it, they have the right to keep the

information confidential about the fact that the request for medical assistance has been made. On

their history, the diagnosis and other information, and to observe and handle them, as well as the

option of people to whom data about the patient's health status may be provided on behalf (Terry,

2007). Throughout the case of a breach of a patient's rule, a lawsuit can be filed immediately

with the director of the health and prevention establishment, the related medical professional

organizations, certified boards, or the Judge.

The citizen's right to the privacy of the information they transmit on request and delivery of

medical treatment, along with other information that renders medical private, creates medical

employees' and everyone else's responsibility for transparency. Where there are no set rules on

whether to report or not to report criminal activities, the physician should be guided by both the

ethical principles as well as what he feels is morally right and has a greater benefit. In case a
criminal activity is carried out by a patient and a third party wishes to report it, then the health

care provider should not report should instead maintain confidentiality (Demirsoy, 2016).

b) Informed Consent

Informed ensures that all relevant knowledge is made clear to the consenting person. Not to

consider it everything just to say that a specialist has clarified the consequences to you (for

example, a lawyer for legal issues or a doctor for a surgery). It does not indicate that the

individual is conscious of what the smart move is, but it does not mean, that the dosage doesn't

mean that they are necessarily going to make a good choice. It just means that you have ample

knowledge to make a reasonable decision for an ordinary citizen (Cordasco, 2013).

Informed consent aims to ensure that research subjects understand the process, benefits, and

risks associated with the study. However, the process has serious challenges in its application.

Researchers have failed to obtain fully informed consent from their subjects. The requirement to

obtain informed consent is critical for protecting marginalized groups from taking part in

procedures they do not understand.

Informed consent has remained significant in research. It has originated from several laws

and declarations like the Nuremberg Code, the Belmont Report, and the Declaration of Helsinki

(Hallock, 2017). These documents strive to ensure that researchers and doctors behave ethically

throughout their procedures. The theory of informed consent to therapy is that a patient must

give consent before some kind of medical therapy, examination, or evaluation is obtained. To be

true the consent shall be compulsory, informed, and the person making the consent shall be

determined to accept the decision. Consent can be offered expressed or implied, depending on

the care suggested.

c) Specialized Patient Record

As electronic patient records are more widely used, staff are increasingly using computers in

their management of patients. Computer keyboards are not easily cleanable, particularly between

keys; as a result, they can become heavily contaminated. Insufficient or unusual purification

permits the existence and persistence of microbial toxins on ambient surfaces and may be

utilized by device keypads (and mice) to provide patients with no direct risk. Nurses recording

patient observations and medical staff passing from keyboard to keyboard usually without hand

hygiene may transmit pathogens to other patients via contaminated computer keyboards. The

creation of algorithms to build risk assessments for a wide spectrum of medical and dental

disorders is a natural extension as electronic health reports grow more allergic. The method of

choosing suitable care alternatives and creating a context that can be used by dentists and

patients to make comparisons treatment decisions and findings can be created by computer-based

artificial intelligence.

With time and attention, the device should have a full, flawless perspective of the patient.

Configurable viewpoints can be used to meet the knowledge and workflow needs of a particular

user. The clinical engineer will obtain the requisite knowledge to streamline the pragmatic

decision-making from a comprehensive and summarising view that incorporates the relevant

details. Displays should be set to prioritize essential statistics, thus eliminating clutter but quick

access to all related data. The computerized data of patients with supportive features, such as

expert networks, treatment pathways, guidelines, legislation, reference documentation, and

medical literature, should have complex relations.

To address the medico-legal effects of voicing a condition explicitly on the web, as a patient

was not tested by the consultant, an organization provides service from the general practitioner
of the patient. Since no patient sends data directly to the counselor, no connection is formed

between the doctor and the patient. The patient is provided for by their referring physician who

prefers to approve or deny his view.

Though hackers can enter electronic networks, the stealing of medical identities has now

become more significant. Much like anyone who might park outside a pharmacy and hit the

credit card clearance process remotely, they may try to block interactions between clinics or even

between units of hospitals. Kieke reports a study that three percent of identity fraud crimes by

the Federal Trade Commission. This is research by the Federal Trade Commission. Theft can be

used to access medical care illegitimately, make false statements, or try to procure medicines

(Kieke, 2009, pp51-52). When the identification has been destroyed, it can be purchased and

resold numerous times to refute the allegations and to regain its reputation.

The time of responses would have to be speedy enough and workstations readily available to

the care point should be comfortable. A benefit is telephone connections. Accessing patient data

via wireless communications through mobile devices is an appealing option for patients, but

accessibility and protection challenges must be overcome before they are completely enforced. A

significant range of fields of study, education, decision support, and outside communication is

now funded by the patient database. Via management, funding, quality control, and study fields,

aggregate data is also available.

Importance of legal and ethical aspects course

Increased attention for the improvement of quality of health care systems has led to better

options for health safety but still the issues concerning patient safety need more attention. It is

because there are numerous threats to the safety of the patients especially their privacy in a
healthcare systems for which the consent of the patients is also necessary. Patient safety is

multidimensional and grounded in legal and ethical imperatives therefore both legal and ethical

aspects holds prime importance. As the healthcare system is aimed at safety of health of the

patients so it also includes the safety in terms of privacy, confidentiality, records safety.

Therefore, there is a need for the healthcare practitioner to aware of the legal and ethical aspects

course is most important.

Conclusion

The ultimate goal of the healthcare system is to provide the patients with best quality and

services for their patients. In order to deliver and achieve this goal there is a need to develop

different structured policies and processes, which can ensure the safety of the patients in terms of

privacy, and record keeping on the basis of mutual trust between patients and healthcare

practitioners. In order to protect the safety of the patient the physician can arrange a counseling

to prevent the criminal activities from continuing without necessarily infringing on the patient’s

privacy. This should however be done after the patient has given informed consent and is

comfortable with the idea. This is all the concept of confidentiality and privacy of the patients.

The patients should be consented in order to have a mutual trust on both sides. The

process is prone to a misunderstanding between the subject and the researcher.

Misunderstandings in obtaining informed consent may result from both the researcher and the

subject. Such barriers contribute to unethical practices or negative outcomes in research

procedures. It is the responsibility of the researcher to inform research subjects about the

purpose, benefits, and risks of any procedure before such subjects take part in a procedure.
 An electronic record that enables exchanges between medical provider and readabilities,

and does not depend on the old paper method that needs to be delivered manually or at most

faxed among offices is referred to as the patient's specialized record. Developing appropriate

EHR frameworks will add a new level to patient analyses of the health records. Adequate ties for

describing scientific names, facts, various views, and other helpful strategies will vastly improve

the assistance offered to the patient, based on the users' profiles that help enhance the utility and

proliferation of the patients' health records (Bocionek, 2003).

Finally, a lack of applicable regulatory precedents is the root cause of the confusion

surrounding the responsibility for e-medicine. Technology and experience of e-medicine are still

emerging and the future risks for insurance providers are still uncertain. IT offers various

rewards but does not go infinite and unlimited. Doctors need to know about these innovations to

establish reasonable standards, optimize their profit, ensure the safety of patients and prevent

catastrophic dangers. The safeguards and confidentiality of secure personal health records should

be ensured by organizations. They need to consider and protect the protection and safety of

patient records under the laws of privacy. In years, several efforts have been made to advance

clinical technology, to reform medical records, and to foster more diligent health care

practitioners. The full spectrum of software is not required in specialized hospitals and many

doctor's offices, even with subsets or main modules enough. Although it should be important for

any EMR implementation to be able to arrange and view medical data meaningfully in line with

any standardization and the potential to move information to other locations as necessary. In

addition to the requisite technologies, the human needs of using the device must be looked at.

For the resounding success of any implantation, users, doctors, and nurses, in particular, are
critical. The entire architecture can be moot by not fixing problems that result from this group of

users.
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