Legal issues related to mishandling of information of patients by the mobile teams of NTN
According to Gastin (1994) patient’s information or medical record should be kept in private and confidential between the patient and the medical practitioner. However legal issues may arise upon mishandling of a patient’s medical history.
- The risks of medical malpractice claims.
Doctors and nursing students are at risk of medical malpractice during the adoption of a patient’s medical records. Risk of error increases during the “implementation schism,” or during the transition from a familiar system to a new one. Electronic medical records can either help or hurt the doctors and nursing student’s case against malpractice claims (Schwartz, 2013).
- Likelihood of medical errors.
Too much reliance on an electronic medical record can result in small mistakes that eventually lead to medical errors. Computers are applicable today in most of the organization. Medical facilities sometimes experience data loss or low network connection. The servers which contain patient’s records become difficult to access; these would force a doctor to treat patients without any medical history. Furthermore, doctors may give a wrong dosage by a mistake which would lead to drug abuse by patients (Hayward & Hofer, 2001).
- Risk by medical students
Nursing students have no experience; they might administer a wrong drug to patients leading to persistent illness or even deaths in some severe cases.
- Theft and unauthorized access to medical facilities.
Health information faces the risk of theft and unauthorized access which poses major legal risks. In the US, the government has discovered HIPAA and HITECH violations as an ample avenue to recover funds and bring money back into a financially-addled government (Bansal & Gefen, 2010)
- Practical tips for healthcare leaders.
Hospital administrations need to devote more strategy to ensure doctors and nursing students are well informed concerning compliance and legal risks. This begins with the training process which is not easy for the doctors and nursing students given their traditional modus operandi. The hospital needs to develop specific programs to ensure the doctors and nursing students don’t risk legality out of ignorance (Leatt & Porter, 2003).
Ethics are the rules we should live by or having a good understanding of what is appropriate behavior, the following are ethics related to MTN
Ethical Standards.
- Utilitarian approach- A functional activity that connects outcomes to decisions.
- Rights Approach- good practice which best secures rights for people affected by the occurrence.
- Equity Approach- These are activities which have certain rules which respect every single person similarly.
- Virtue approach- Moral activities ought to be predictable with perfect ethics, for example, trustworthiness, bravery, empathy, liberality, resistance, love and so forth.
Unethical behaviors
There are three categories of unethical behavior in the organization:
- Ignorance- lack of information.
- Accident- travelling to and fro the main facility is not safe
- Intent- To have a purpose.
Ways which deterrence may occur:
- Fear of consequence.
- The chances of being found.
Probability of penalty facing the consequences.
Organizational Obligation and the need for counsel.
- Liability- it refers to being responsible for something.
- Liability may prompt compensation or installation.
- Association builds risk when it declines taking appropriate actions to guarantee moral conduct.
- Conducting due ingenuity to all staff
- Long-arm purview.
Managing Examination in the Organization.
- Internal examinations for PC morals are frequently finished utilizing advanced crime scene investigation.
- There must be considerable confirmation to make a move.
- Documenting, saving, recognizing, and removing proof.
- Digital legal sciences are utilized for two purposes identified with morals:
- To explore charges of advanced impropriety
- To perform a cause analysis of the problem
- When detectives find verdict, they must notify the concern department and to carry out law enforcement
- Apply digital forensics techniques.
- Arrest those that are liable
Karabay, Elçi & Akp?nar (2018) states the following ethical behaviors:
- Charging phone off the computers- most of the staff are used to charging their phones off the machines which are not good. Charging of phones may transmit a virus to computers. Some malware is contained in the devices, and may be automatically installed in the machines.
- Cleaning computers- all staffs should ask the information security department before making any program changes in the equipment such as program installation. Some programs can cause a serious security risk. All downloads should be made only after the consultation from the information security officer. Computer security settings should prohibit users installation of any application by themselves (Hodge Gostin & Jacobson1999)
- Prohibit users from following links- staff might be tempted to follow unknown link or ads, other links might be harmful to computers.
- Lock off computers when unattended- this would prevent spams or unrequired data from entering the computers.
- Be careful with open Wi-Fi – staff should not connect to any available network apart from those provided by the organization. When one connects to a public network data might be exposed to all other users of data.
Use a secure password- choose a combination of lower case and upper case letters, include numbers and makes sure that the password length is long. Change password regularly and never used the same password for different accounts.
- Report any suspicious activity- if you sense any cause of concern, raise the alarm to the security concern team.
- Update firewalls- update anti-virus regularly.
- Never email sensitive information – if you need to pass sensitive information use a secure file transfer that encrypts the data.
- Scan computers regularly- start a malware scan every week, it’s a useful method of ensuring the office computers are always save.
- Confidentiality – confidentiality means concealing of information, confidentiality of information assures that the information can only be seen by with people a right to access.
- Integrity – integrity implies the trustworthiness of information integrity involves data integrity, for instance, the content of information and data source. Integrity in simple terms is making sure that information is always intact and unaltered.
- Availability- it refers to the ability to utilize the information at any time.
- Authenticity- it relates to being real and trustful.
- Accountability- accountability means functions of an entity may be traced separately to that of an object.
- Health Insurance and Portability and Accountability Act of 1996
The act tries to protect the privacy of health care. It enforces standards by regulating electronic data transmission. The law requires any medical health facility to retain patients’ information and protect information (Edemekong & Haydel, 2018)
The HIPPA ensures control, accountability, and security of information among other policies.
- Financial Services modernization ACT of 1999
This act ensures all organization to submit non-public private information and unfolding how clients can know that their knowledge remains intact (Conlon, 2018)
- U.S copyright Law- this help to protect the intellectual property, it includes information that is published through electronic formats, it allows materials to be used only for educational purposes but not for business (Riegner, 2018)
- Freedom of information Act of 1966 (FOLA) – according to this, act all federal agencies must submit disclosed records of any person in writing when requested. This act is only applicable by the federal agencies. It doesn’t create any right of accessing records formed by courts, Congress, state or local agencies.
- Federal Privacy Act of 1974- it regulates how the government use information that contains peoples private information, it was formed to ensure agencies guard the privacy of persons.
- Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA)- this has helped to reduce instances of copyrights more so bypassing technological right protection measures
References
Bansal, G. and Gefen, D., 2010. The impact of personal dispositions on information sensitivity, privacy concern, and trust in disclosing health information online. Decision support systems, 49(2), pp.138-150.
Conlon, P., 2018. Grandfathered into Commerce: Assessing the Federal Reserve’s Proposed Rules Limiting Physical Commodities Activities of Financial Holding Companies. NC Banking Inst., 22, p.351.
Edemekong, P.F. and Haydel, M.J., 2018. Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA). In StatPearls [Internet]. StatPearls Publishing.
Gastin, L.O., 1994. Health information privacy. Cornell L. Rev., 80, p.451.
Hayward, R.A., and Hofer, T.P., 2001. Estimating hospital deaths due to medical errors: preventability is in the eye of the reviewer. Jama, 286(4), pp.415-420.
Hodge Jr, J.G., Gostin, L.O. and Jacobson, P.D., 1999. Legal issues concerning electronic health information: privacy, quality, and liability. Jama, 282(15), pp.1466-1471.
Karabay, M.E., Elçi, M. and Akp?nar, Ö., 2018. Analysing the Effects of Unethical Culture and Organizational Commitment on Employees’ and Managers’ Unethical Behaviours: Evidence from Turkish Insurance Industry. In Regulations and Applications of Ethics in Business Practice (pp. 77-95). Springer, Singapore.
Leatt, P. and Porter, J., 2003. Where are the health care leaders” the need for investment in leadership development? HealthcarePapers, 4(1), pp.14-31.
Riegner, M., 2018. Access to Information as a Human Right and Constitutional Guarantee. A Comparative Perspective. VRÜ Verfassung und Recht in Übersee, 50(4), pp.332-366.
Schwartz, R.L., 2013. Health law: cases, materials, and problems. West Academic Publishing.
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