Technological advancements in the contemporary nursing

Technology improvements in modern nursing environments play an important role in promoting practice improvement. Nursing Information Systems (NIS) in particular are an important component of crucial technological integrations that assist the enhancement of patient care delivery. Significantly, technology integrations in nursing practice must address the need of sustaining ethical values because they contribute to the effective provision of nursing services in various healthcare settings (Duan, Street, & Xu, 2011). In this light, one of the most important issues when employing information technologies in a nursing setting is data integrity. The ethical and legal implications of data integrity hold relevance to a considerable extent by influencing the well-being of the patients. Important to note, the delivery of the appropriate nursing services through the integration of information systems not only facilitates an enhancement of the quality of nursing practice but also protects the rights of patients. Therefore, this paper addresses the aspect of data integrity in nursing information systems by concentrating on its legal and ethical implications.

Data Integrity in Nursing Information Systems

In nursing practice, data integrity infers to the accuracy and consistency of the data throughout its lifecycle. Mainly, information systems provide the database for the storage of data in the nursing environment. Thus, the integrity of the data fosters the privacy and security of stored data. The effective observation of information integrity goes a long way in facilitating the delivery of quality nursing services by enhancing the accuracy and validity of data used to improve the health status of the patient.

One of the nursing information systems that have seen considerable integration in the contemporary healthcare settings includes the Electronic Health Records (EHR). The EHR system has several components that facilitate the creation, application, storage, and retrieval of patient information.

The main features of the EHR concentrate on the delivery of efficient nursing and clinical services to patients in the diverse healthcare environment. One of the features of the EHR entails the facilitation of patient care planning (Duan, Street, & Xu, 2011). The need to engage in accurate information exchanges is crucial for streamlining the planning of patient care for the sake of improving the health of a given patient.

The effective documentation of patient care delivery is also a component of the EHR system. In this regard, it is crucial for the system to observe both accuracy and consistency in recording information regarding the administration of nursing and clinical care. Failure to do could result in nursing or medical errors that could undermine the wellbeing of the patient (Hsiao, Chang, & Chen, 2011). Thus, upholding the well-being of the patient is crucial for promoting the wellness of the patient.

Moreover, the EHR system has a feature that facilitates the evaluation of the care delivered to the patient. Undoubtedly, it is important for nurses using the information system to ensure that the accuracy and consistency of data used in facilitating the care delivery lead to the improvement of the patient’s health. Failure to maintain accuracy and validity implies that the evaluation would reveal unsuccessful delivery of care and thus, question their professionalism.

The Legal and Ethical Implications of Data Integrity

Information breaches have legal implications since they infringe the rights of others regarding their security and privacy (Duan, Street, & Xu, 2011). In this concern, legal frameworks in the healthcare field penalize practitioners violating the data integrity provisions in a bid to discourage the practice.

Legal Implications

The need to protect the rights of patients in the field of nursing is very crucial. In this regard, the nursing agencies including the American Nurses Association underlines that practitioners need to safeguard the patient’s rights by upholding the aspects of confidentiality, privacy, and security. In doing so, nurses would be in the frontline towards facilitating the offering of quality care services to patients.

Confidentiality infers to the ability of a nursing practitioner accessing patient data, information, or communication to treat it with confidence. Thus, confidentiality is regarded as privileged communication between the patient and the nurse (Hsiao, Chang, & Chen, 2011). As such, the law is against practitioners that breach the confidentiality of information exchanged between the patient and the healthcare expert or any other involved stakeholder.

Privacy infers that the practitioner has the right to choose who accesses their information and how it is shared. The “Privacy Rule” underlined by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) emphasizes the need to maintain a balance regarding the sharing of information in the course of protecting the privacy of information belonging to individuals seeking health care services (Jiang, et al., 2013).

Moreover, the security aspect of data integrity requires nursing practitioners to protect the confidentiality and privacy of the information about a particular patient (Jiang, et al., 2013). Thus, when using nursing information systems, compliance with the regulatory requirements is crucial for enhancing the security of the data. Failure to safeguard the data undermines the administration of quality healthcare services to the patient.

Ethical Implications

The lack of data integrity also fails to observe the ethical principles that guide nursing practice. Notably, the inaccuracy and inconsistency of data generated, used, and stored in the process of healthcare delivery violates the various ethical aspects including the confidentiality and privacy (Hsiao, Chang, & Chen, 2011). Undoubtedly, it is the moral duty of a nurse to ensure that the patient’s data recorded, used, and stored for purposes of improving their health serves the purpose since such actions demonstrate the relevance of their professional roles. Failure to do implies that nurses fail to observe the deontological principles of ethics.

The American Nurses Association requires the practitioners in the nursing field to observe the protection of patients’ health, foster their safety, and safeguard their rights by upholding the essence of data integrity (Jiang, et al., 2013). In doing so, they need to consider protecting the privacy, confidentiality, and the protection of patients in research engagements. Thus, a nursing practitioner failing to observe their moral duties in their line of work is regarded as unprofessional and is punishable by the relevant laws. In such cases, the healthcare agencies could apply the necessary disciplinary actions to unethical practitioners undermining the wellbeing of the patients.

Further, the Kantian moral principles underline that individuals need to act in a way that facilitates the realization of happiness to the greatest majority. Therefore, failing to act in a way that facilitates the attainment of happiness to the greatest majority in a given setting is regarded as immoral or unethical (Hsiao, Chang, & Chen, 2011). In this respect, a nursing practitioner that violates the essence of observing the accuracy and consistency of data when delivering care to the patient is regarded as unethical since their actions undermine the overall health status of the general population.

Conclusion

The need to enhance the efficiency of nursing information systems holds essence to a significant degree. Particularly, data integrity promotes the delivery of desirable nursing services to patients. As noted, failure to observe data integrity has both legal and ethical implications that undermine the quality of nursing practice. Therefore, in the age of nursing information systems, it is crucial for safeguarding the information exchange between the patient and the healthcare expert for the sake of improving the well-being of the patient effectively.

References

Duan, L., Street, W. N., & Xu, E. (2011). Healthcare information systems: data mining methods in the creation of a clinical recommender system. Enterprise Information Systems, 5(2), 169-181.\

Hsiao, J. L., Chang, H. C., & Chen, R. F. (2011). A study of factors affecting acceptance of hospital information systems: a nursing perspective. Journal of Nursing Research, 19(2), 150-160.

Jiang, Q., Ma, J., Ma, Z., & Li, G. (2013). A privacy enhanced authentication scheme for telecare medical information systems. Journal of medical systems, 37(1), 9897-9908.