HIPAA Rules and Regulations

Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996 (HIPAA) was created to protect the privacy of personal health information. Patients’ health information is to be remained confidential not only because of it is mandated by law; it also involved the code of ethics in the health care field.  HIPAA is an example of the combination of ethics and the law. HIPAA provides a guideline for privacy, security, and enforcement on health information and the use of it, which is strongly tied to the responsibilities of the ethics committees in health care organizations.

The Federal Register published the amendments to the HIPAA Privacy, Security, Enforcement, and Breach Notification Rules in January, 2013 to clarify confusions and to correct many provisions that had not worked in the original HIPAA published in 1996 (Rothstein, 2013). The Revised HIPAA made changes which are mandated by the Health Information Technology for Economic and Clinical Health (HITECH) Act. The HIPAA Privacy Rule provide patient with protection for individually identifiable health information held by business including health care organizations (Brown, 2008). The act aimed to balance the disclosure of health information needed for patient care and the violation of patient privacy.

Having (2008), conducted a study on the perception of ethics committee in hospitals with and without a HIPAA officer in rural areas. The study indicated that respondents believed that an ethics committee with at least one HIPAA officer is more likely to be involved in and impacted by HIPAA related compliances. HIPAA officer within those ethics committees also agreed that the ethics committee should be involved in HIPAA related issues more often.

Ethical decisions do not only involve with decisions for treatment and life and death situations, they also includes the administration portion of the health care organization that involves operation and patient care. The HIPPA Security Rule covers the safeguards of patients’ identifiable information in the administrative, physical and technical aspect to assure the balance between confidentiality and availability of patient’s information. Patient privacy is important part of an organization’s code of ethics, and should be taken into account in while considering the balance between ethic, treatment and patient rights.

Resource

Brown, B. (2008). Striking a Balance between HIPAA and Care Coordination. Journal Of

Health Care Compliance, 10(6), 27-70.

Having, K., Hale, D., & Lautar, C. (2008). Ethics Committees in the Rural Midwest: Exploring

the Impact of HIPAA. The Journal Of Rural Health: Official Journal Of The American Rural Health Association And The National Rural Health Care Association, 24(3), 316-320. doi:10.1111/j.1748-0361.2008.00175.x

Rothstein, M. (2013). HIPAA Privacy Rule 2.0. Journal Of Law, Medicine & Ethics, 41(2), 525-

528.

Morality and Ethics in Health Care

 “Morality is a code of conduct” (Progaz, 2012).  The word morality is sometimes used interchangeably with ethics. Morality is the behaviors and beliefs about human decency, good and evil, proper and improper, whereas ethics is a philosophical reflection on moral beliefs and behaviors (Highfield, n.d.). In other words, Ethics is the ideology behind morality. Therefore, ethics committees’ ultimate mission is to make moral decisions and to facilitate others to reach morality.

James Davison Hunter, a professor of religion, culture and social theory at the University of Virginia believed that the definition of morality has changed over time. Morality used to be not only emotional, it was also social, and the need for doing the right thing was imperative to people. As the time change, the idea behind morality also changed. Morality is now seen as a choice, that it can be changed as situation and circumstances changed. Hunter believed that “we’ve moved from a culture of character to a culture of personality” (Rowe, 2013), and we personalize our ideas of the good and the right.

Complicated and complex ethical issues occur in the health care setting on a regular basis, and the issues surrounding morality happen every single day in the field. It is extremely difficult even for health care professional to face death, let alone having to contribute to end-of-life decision making processes, especially when technology improves every moment, and people’s perception of morality and ethics change over time. Conflict related to morality is often brought to the ethics committees within a health care organization. The ethics committee serves as a portal in resolving many of these conflicts.

The responsibilities of ethics committee are to provide educational, consultation and supportive measures to patients and health care professionals, and to enhance decision-making process of the organization. It also takes the role of analyze and elucidate confusions and dilemmas in the health care setting (Moeller, 2012).  When dealing with cases, Young’s strategy suggested five steps. The Committees should define the problem first, and then collect as much information as possible, follow by identification of the important values and principles. The final two steps involves in the reflection of motives and intentions and to prioritize the conflicting values and make the ethical and most responsible decision (Rowe, 2013).

Resource

Rowe, R. (2013). Understanding the Context of Moral Dilemmas in Health Care Organizations:

Perspectives for Employee Training and Continuing Education. Home Health Care Management & Practice, 25(4), 141-146. doi:10.1177/1084822312473830

Issue of Morality

 “Morality is a code of conduct” (Progaz, 2012).  The word morality is sometimes used interchangeably with ethics. Morality is the behaviors and beliefs about human decency, good and evil, proper and improper, whereas ethics is a philosophical reflection on moral beliefs and behaviors (Highfield, n.d.). In other words, Ethics is the ideology behind morality. Therefore, ethics committees’ ultimate mission is to make moral decisions and to facilitate others to reach morality.

James Davison Hunter, a professor of religion, culture and social theory at the University of Virginia believed that the definition of morality has changed over time. Morality used to be not only emotional, it was also social, and the need for doing the right thing was imperative to people. As the time change, the idea behind morality also changed. Morality is now seen as a choice, that it can be changed as situation and circumstances changed. Hunter believed that “we’ve moved from a culture of character to a culture of personality” (Rowe, 2013), and we personalize our ideas of the good and the right.

Complicated and complex ethical issues occur in the health care setting on a regular basis, and the issues surrounding morality happen every single day in the field. It is extremely difficult even for health care professional to face death, let alone having to contribute to end-of-life decision making processes, especially when technology improves every moment, and people’s perception of morality and ethics change over time. Conflict related to morality is often brought to the ethics committees within a health care organization. The ethics committee serves as a portal in resolving many of these conflicts.

The responsibilities of ethics committee are to provide educational, consultation and supportive measures to patients and health care professionals, and to enhance decision-making process of the organization. It also takes the role of analyze and elucidate confusions and dilemmas in the health care setting (Moeller, 2012).  When dealing with cases, Young’s strategy suggested five steps. The Committees should define the problem first, and then collect as much information as possible, follow by identification of the important values and principles. The final two steps involves in the reflection of motives and intentions and to prioritize the conflicting values and make the ethical and most responsible decision (Rowe, 2013).

Resource

Highfield, M. (n.d.). Ethical Decision-making & Influencing Factors. California State University

Northridge. Retrieved from http://www.csun.edu/~meh20426/303/6EthicsIntro.pdf

Moeller, J., Albanese, T., Garchar, K., Aultman, J., Radwany, S., & Frate, D. (2012). Functions

and Outcomes of a Clinical Medical Ethics Committee: A Review of 100 Consults. HEC Forum, 24(2), 99-114. doi:10.1007/s10730-011-9170-9

Pozgar, George (2012). Legal Aspects of Health Care Administration 11^th Edition. Sudbury, MA:

Jones & Bartlett Learning.

Rowe, R. (2013). Understanding the Context of Moral Dilemmas in Health Care Organizations:

Perspectives for Employee Training and Continuing Education. Home Health Care Management & Practice, 25(4), 141-146. doi:10.1177/1084822312473830

The Rules Governing How Ethics Committees Work

The laws often time reflects the minimum requirement of ethics and are enforced by state and federal authorities. However, it is important to realize that law does not equal to ethics. Against common belief, it is possible to take unethical but legal actions under various circumstances. For instances, abortion is legal in some states, but it may not be considered ethical depending on the situation and the person and party perceiving it. People make ethical decisions based on the law, morality, values and their code of ethics in their professional field.

Ethical committees were established to support and advise patients, families, as well as caregivers as they work together to find solutions for different circumstances involve ethical decisions (Pope, 2009). The committees are typically multidisciplinary groups comprised of representative from different departments of the healthcare facility-medicine, nursing, law, pastoral care, and social work, etc. Rosalind Ekman Ladd (2009) from Brown University considered the most sexiest part of ethics committees is case consultation, where ethics committees help solve conflicts between health care workers, or between health care workers and patients around health care related issues.

Ethics committees in the health care field are usually being perceived as groups that provide advisory and facilitation for the organization, care giver and the patients. When in reality, ethics committees are often largely involved in the final decision making. In most cases, ethics committees are given authority and responsibility by law to make treatment decisions when conflicts arise between parties involved in the treatment (Pope, 2009).

Ethics committees are still under a lot of debates for their decision making processes, from the risks of corruption, bias, to carelessness and arbitrariness (Pope, 2009). However, the intensions of ethics committees are un-doubly good willed. Ethics committees need to undergo continues process improvement because of all the issues encountered, and also the value and believe of ethics change with the value and believe of the society. Ethics committee is designed to increase understanding among all the involved parties, and to help resolve difficult ethical, legal and medical dilemmas faced by care givers of the critically and terminally ill patients.

Resource

Ladd, R. (2009). Roles and responsibilities of ethics committees. The American Journal Of

Bioethics: AJOB, 9(4), 41-42. doi:10.1080/15265160802716837

Pope, T. M. (2009). Multi-institutional Healthcare Ethics Committees: The Procedurally Fair

Internal Dispute Resolution Mechanism. Campbell University. Retrieved from http://law.campbell.edu/lawreview/articles/31-2-257.pdf

What is Health Care Ethics?

Ethic separates the good from the bad, and the right from the wrong. It is based on the perception of the public, the society and the traditions of the culture. In the business setting, including the health care field, ethics refer to a set of rules that guide the conducts of the health care professionals. Ethics may or may not be in a written format within an organization, but most organizations have code of ethics to guide the behavior of employees. Professional Ethic is very important to the organization and the society it serves, especially in the health care field due to the nature of the business.

Tragedies and medical mishap had happened numerous times in the history because of the lack of awareness of professional ethics. There are two classifications of ethics, normative and descriptive. Normative ethics is the proper behavior for a given situation, and descriptive ethics is the actual behavior for a given situation (Highfield, n.d.). An ethical dilemma happens when a person or a group has to make a decision between rights or ethical principles when there is conflict between the two.

 Ethical dilemma arises often in the health care setting. Most patients arrive at the hospital without advance directives. If a patient is in a comatose state or in a condition where the patient is not able to make a conscious medical decision, then a dilemma exists. What if a patient’s family wants the hospital to do anything and everything to keep the patient alive, regardless of the physician’s suggestion that it is not in the patient’s best interest? Cases when the authorities and the hospital are not able to locate patients’ family or next of kin are not uncommon especially in areas with a high population of homeless.  All of these situations require professional ethical calls from the health care professionals and the management. 

Efforts had been implemented to reduce and prevent unethical practice by health care providers and organizations. Ethical committee is one of the efforts implemented by a lot of the health care organizations aiming to prevent tragedies in the history from happening again and to help the involved parties to make ethical and reasonable decisions related to health care.

Resource

Highfield, M. (n.d.). Ethical Decision-making & Influencing Factors. California State University

Northridge. Retrieved from http://www.csun.edu/~meh20426/303/6EthicsIntro.pdf