Assignment Task:
In response to the peers post, discuss the information they have provided. How is the information useful or not useful to you as a professional in this field of study?
Patti post
The first challenge in scenario 2 was leaving the computer with their colleague. If the person could not wait to use the restroom after boarding the plane, then they should have taken the laptop with them, especially since they knew there was sensitive information that could be accessed. If the person didn't want to take the laptop with them, they should have locked and secured it in a piece of luggage, rather than leaving it on their chair, where it could be forgotten. The colleague could have waited for the fellow traveler to return before boarding the plane, which would have eliminated forgetting the laptop. Policies for data management and equipment should be implemented during the hiring process, annually, and even after a person leaves the company to ensure the security of sensitive information.
Ethics is the framework for determining what is right or wrong. Policies are actionable rules and guidelines for behavior. In healthcare, ethical principles like autonomy and beneficence are what guide healthcare polices and are related to informed consent and treatments. Ethics and policy should match up; ethics provides the moral compass for policy development, while policy provides the practical means for achieving ethical goals. In this scenario, the policy was not followed because the employee left their laptop "unattended", which could cause a breach in information. Ethically, the employee did not do the right thing by leaving it with their colleague in a busy airport.
When individual ethics don't align with an organization's policy, it can lead to stress, decreased job satisfaction, absenteeism, and both legal and reputation damage for the individual and company. These can be mitigated through clear ethical guidelines, ethical and policy training, and fostering a culture of integrity.
Key POST
With any healthcare system, it is always vital to keep accurate records on all patients and it's of equal importance to keep them safe and filed correctly, per HIPAA. Furthermore, the Joint Commission standards require that the patient record contain patient-specific information appropriate to the care, treatment, and services provided (Bowie, 2022). This is one major issue in scenario 1. While the data was collected on these patients, it was not all retained and was also tampered with.
In an effort to prevent further damage, the associate that noticed that those who experienced adverse reactions were removed from the database needs to follow the proper chain of command to alert them of this-regardless of it this means grant money will no longer be awarded for the project. All data needs to be collected, accurate, and complete to ensure the accurate measurement of the quality of care given. Quality documentation is essential to the entire health care system impacting patients, providers, accreditation, utilization review to name a few (Bowie, 2022).
Ethics are a code of conduct, establishing a clear guideline for what's right and wrong. There was an ethical dilemma involved with scenario 1 as information that could determine the fate of said patient(s) as well as potential future patients could be negatively impacted due to intentional deception. Ethics and policy in a sense work together as policies are created in an effort to ensure healthcare professionals do the right thing by the patient and practice in every scope-however, they don't always align.
Someone can disagree with a policy due to their own personal beliefs or religion, and thus could be less inclined to follow the policies set forth. If an individual decides to still work for an organization that has policies that don't align with what they feel is right, it could end up posing both legal and ethical lawsuits, loss of business revenue and more. Need Assignment Help?