Ethics, Cyber Ethics and Security in Nursing and Healthcare: Essay

Ethics, Cyber Ethics, and Security

In recent years, hackers have targeted medical records, from hospitals and other healthcare institutions, across the country. These records contain personal information, contact information, and most importantly, for the hackers, information that may prove useful in stealing an identity. Thus, healthcare organizations have made it a priority to protect patient records and privacy. However, with the influx of technological advancements and hacker determination, there is no perfect way to ensure that all records are secure and safe.

In addition to medical records, privacy concerns are relevant with any patient chart in any setting. For example, a chart left open on a computer monitor in a patient room, employee passwords and log-in information, and new employee access and screening all represent other ways in which ethics and security merge in healthcare and nursing practice.

For this Discussion, you will consider the importance of ethics as it relates to security. You will also reflect on how these topics might affect clinical practice and the connection to nursing informatics.

To Prepare

Review the Learning Resources associated with the topics of ethics, cyber ethics, and security.

Consider the role of each of these topics for clinical practice, as well as the importance of understanding each of these topics.

Post a cohesive response to the following:

What are the key challenges that healthcare practitioners encounter when balancing patient care with the requirement for stringent data protection? How can healthcare organizations ensure patient confidentiality while effectively leveraging digital tools to enhance care delivery?

Ethics, Cyber Ethics, and Security in Nursing and Healthcare Essay

Ethics, Cyber Ethics, and Security

What are the key challenges that healthcare practitioners encounter when balancing patient care with the requirement for stringent data protection?

The first challenge involves balancing between access to patient medical data and privacy requirements. Multidisciplinary team members require to access comprehensive patient records immediately particularly in emergency care. This electronic medical data allows team members to effectively collaborate in developing the best treatment plan, achieving desired treatment outcomes. However, immediate access to patient’s medical records documented in clinical health system can be challenging due to strict regulatory measures designed to prevent breaches. For example, the HIPAA regulates access to electronic health information, protecting US citizens from negative effects associated with unauthorized access to person information documented in digital tools (Rockwern et al., 2021). Thus, adherence to data protection measures hinder clinicians from providing timely, effective, and safe patient care especially in emergencies.

Another threat is rapid increase in cybersecurity threats. Recent literature has reported dramatic rise phishing and ransomware attacks within the healthcare sector. According to Kirubavathi et al. (2024), the healthcare sector has increasingly become susceptible to cyber threats following rapid digitization of the industry. Healthcare organizations are mainly targeted by the attackers due to their critical data. This trend poses a significant risk to confidentiality, patient care, and financial stability. In 2026, successful breaches led to massive financial penalties. These cases also destroyed reputations of affected healthcare organization, resulting in legal consequences. Consequently, its challenging for the providers who are more careful to prevent potential attacks to leverage electronic data during care delivery, resulting in negative treatment outcomes.

How can healthcare organizations ensure patient confidentiality while effectively leveraging digital tools to enhance care delivery?

These organizations can adopt robust technical safeguards. This goal can be achieved by encrypting data in transit and at rest, which would prevent unauthorized access to patient data documented in digital records. Secure authentication protocols, particularly multi-factor authentication would also enhance data security, preventing potential data breaches (Kamaruddin & Zolkipli, 2024). Technical safeguards also include role-based access control. In this case, only clinicians involved in care delivery would access electronic medical data, thereby eliminating unauthorized access. The last element is regular security audits, which would ensure that current security measures are effective in enhancing safety and confidentiality of patient medical data documented electronically Ethics, Cyber Ethics, and Security in Nursing and Healthcare Essay.

Healthcare organizations can also introduce secure and interoperable systems. This strategy entails adopting clinical systems that utilize standardized data formats, which would prevent unauthorized access (Reegu et al., 2023). These systems would also allow secure health information exchange (HIE) among authorized parties, improving confidentiality of patient data. The new system would also enable clinicians to share important medical records among multidisciplinary team members involved in care delivery without copying. It would also limit exporting of sensitive information insecurely, enhancing data security. Thus, these interoperable systems would respect and adhere to data protection standards, while improving care coordination to achieve better treatment outcomes.

References

Kamaruddin, N. H. C., & Zolkipli, M. F. (2024). The Role of Multi-Factor Authentication in Mitigating Cyber Threats. Borneo International Journal eISSN 2636-9826 , 7 (4), 35-42. https://majmuah.com/journal/index.php/bij/article/view/667

Kirubavathi, G., Regis Anne, W., & Sridevi, U. K. (2024). A recent review of ransomware attacks on healthcare industries. International Journal of System Assurance Engineering and Management , 15 (11), 5078-5096. https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s13198-024-02496-4

Reegu, F. A., Abas, H., Gulzar, Y., Xin, Q., Alwan, A. A., Jabbari, A., … & Dziyauddin, R. A. (2023). Blockchain-based framework for interoperable electronic health records for an improved healthcare system. Sustainability , 15 (8), 6337 Ethics, Cyber Ethics, and Security in Nursing and Healthcare Essay. https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/15/8/6337

Rockwern, B., Johnson, D., Snyder Sulmasy, L., & Medical Informatics Committee and Ethics, Professionalism and Human Rights Committee of the American College of Physicians. (2021). Health information privacy, protection, and use in the expanding digital health ecosystem: a position paper of the American College of Physicians. Annals of internal medicine , 174 (7), 994-998. https://www.acpjournals.org/doi/full/10.7326/M20-7639