Privacy & Confidentiality in Health Care
There are several reasons why privacy and confidentiality are important for the patients. First of all, some medical conditions are associated with acts that are condemned by the society. For example, the sexually transmitted disease might imply unfaithfulness of a spouse. In addition to that, some medical conditions can have embarrassing symptoms that the patients would like to keep to themselves. Secondly, the information about one’s medical history might be used against a person is a number of ways. For example, some insurance companies or employers might reject the application of a person if they are able to check one’s medical history.Privacy & Confidentiality in Health Care
Speaking of the reasons why privacy and confidentiality are important for healthcare providers, it is useful to keep in mind the following. To begin with, the level of security of this kind of sensitive information often reflects the quality of services provided by a healthcare facility (Lowrance 88). That is why a breach in privacy might ruin company’s image. Furthermore, increased attention to privacy and confidentiality might attract new clients as they will be able to trust the medical facility with the information that they value a lot. This might even become a source of competitive advantage for a healthcare provider Privacy & Confidentiality in Health Care
One might identify the following challenged faced by healthcare organizations when maintaining patient confidentiality. Thus, all information in a hospital is stored on hard drives. It is possible that the hackers will be able to breach the mainframe and hijack this information. That is why the security measures should be high to keep this from happening. Secondly, healthcare organizations employ a large number of people who may have different views on confidentiality. It is possible that a member of the staff will disclose sensitive information, deliberately or not. Moreover, it is possible that a person might be influenced on so that one gives away this information.
Works cited
Lowrance, William W. Privacy, confidentiality, and health research. Cambridge University Press, 2012.Privacy & Confidentiality in Health Care