Confidentiality In Health Care

Privacy and Confidentiality Privacy and confidentiality of patients’ health information is considered sacred in the healthcare world. Maintenance of privacy and confidentiality is crucial to create a suitable environment for unrestricted exchange of sensitive matters between the physicians and their patients. Any breach of confidentiality or privacy could result in irreparable damage to the physician- patient relationship. Patients, due to lack of trust on their providers, may refrain from disclosing essential facts necessary for optimum care and even restrain from seeking medical care entirely. Electronic Health Records (EHRs) contain intimate information of the patients’ health which can be used for provide optimum and appropriate care to the patient. But, in regards to integrated EHRs, too much privacy can conflict with beneficence to the patient and the society at a large. That being said, it is important to note that when crucial information from EHRs gets accidentally or wrongly exposed, it can cause serious harm not only to the patient but also to the health care profession and to the society that depends on this profession for care. Patients can suffer anything from a minor embarrassment to something serious such as losing their health insurance or job due to inappropriate and unauthorized disclosure of their

In this regard Mandl et al, proposed that patients should be allowed to control on who have access to their health information. That being said, if patients do not give optimum access to health care providers their care could suffer greatly due to lack of crucial information. So, in this scenario, patients will have to weigh their privacy over beneficence and make decisions about access and use of their EHR