Analysis of Work Environment
Work environment
The work environment consists of people from different cultural and professional backgrounds who use information systems to communicate and share information across computer networks. The people are of different age groups and educational backgrounds, moral and immoral behavior with ethical and moral behaviors across cultures (Brown & Mitchell, 2010). The issue underlying the work environment include information sharing, information disclosure, illicit use of resources, misuse of cooperating resources, and ethical decisions and evaluations.
Population under the profession
The population under the information systems professional includes healthcare professionals who are a combination of people from different cultural environments, ethical environments, employees in the healthcare profession, and other ordinary information system users.
Code of professional ethics and ethical code requirements
The code of professional ethics of the health care professionals includes the obligations to protect the confidentiality of patient data, which is based on the obligations to the employer, fellow medical practitioners, obligations to society, and personal responsibility to ensure one practice accordingly (Brown & Mitchell, 2010). The healthcare professional is entitled to behave and handle patient information in a manner that puts the patient ethics first, handles patients with dignity, use understandable language, refrain from intimidating behavior, and ensure that patients are addressed by diagnosis and not on religious inclinations. The codes of ethics include paragraph 4 of Section 257 of the Criminal Code of Malta Cap. 9 and Section D, which entails patient information confidentiality, the Health Care Professions Act, 2003 (Cap. 464) of Part V, Article 27 (1) (b), and Health Care Professions Act, 2003 (Cap. 464) of Part V, Article 25 (1), which consists of statutory obligations to keep private patient information undisclosed except as required by certain statutory obligations (Brown & Mitchell, 2010).
The code of imperatives and personal ethical responsibilities
Honesty should be part of the professional code of conduct of the healthcare giver with the customer. Honesty is about truthfulness, effective verbal communication, and accuracy of records, which are executed by following the laid down rule and regulations of collecting and documenting data.
Customer rights
The medical practitioner is obligated to protect the patient from any harm that may result from the use of or application of drugs and any other forms of treatment. Here, “the patient has a right to access their medical records under the HIPAA Privacy Rule of sections 42 U.S.C. 299b–22(g) (3)” (Brown & Mitchell, 2010).
Confidentiality
Patient Safety Confidentiality is enshrined under the Patient Safety and Quality Improvement Act of 2005 (PSQIA), which provides reports on patient safety under section 42 C.F.R. of Part 3 of the rules on patient safety. On the other hand, someone entitled to the healthcare power of the attorney and the HIPAA privacy rules is entitled to access to a patient’s health information depending on the circumstances surrounding the need to access the information. Confidentiality entails not revealing the patient information publicly, staff can only remove patient records within the scope of their work, unauthorized persons are not allowed to access information of the patient (Seiter, 2002).
Dual relationships
The relationship between the patient and the customer shall be kept appropriately to ensure that the relationship between the two parties is not compromised. Besides, the activities between the two parties should not raise any objections by ensuring that the practices are based on established standards. If the relationship between the two parties is compromised, the patient should be transferred to another caregiver (Bartels & Pizarro, 2011). To ensure the relationship is on a professional level, the caregiver should be properly aware of the ethical and professional code of conduct using the ethics manual. Other issues related to dual relationships include disruption of therapeutic relationships and the damage that could result in damaging the relationship between the patient and the medical practitioner.
Fee for services
The fee of service should be charged by the established standards and codes of practice for healthcare givers.
Use of distance technology
The use of distance technology, which enables the healthcare giver to communicate with the customers, should guarantee confidentiality, integrity, and availability of information to the authorized users only.
Evaluation of the working environment and the ethical and professional code of conducts
The professional code of conduct requires the practitioner to enforce integrity, honesty, fairness, responsibility for patient care, deportment as a professional, and the ability to avoid conflict of interest.
Analysis of Ethical Dilemma
Ethical dilemma
The ethical dilemma of a medical practitioner is to reveal patient information about a situation that can affect or lead to harm of another patient or lead to the safety of another patient (Bartels & Pizarro, 2011). Examples include a practitioner in a dilemma on whether to reveal information that a husband has started dating an HIV positive woman to the wife or to reveal information that the wife has started to use intoxicating drugs to the husband (Bartels & Pizarro, 2011). Other ethical dilemmas include ending the life of a terminally ill patient, addiction to drugs of a terminally ill patient, revealing information about terminal ill health, revealing mistakes, which harm patients, and revealing information about someone wanting to kill take one’s life (Brown & Mitchell, 2010).
Ethical concerns
Revealing information for example about someone who wants to commit suicide can result in a lot of good to the person wanting to kill themself. However, the motive behind killing oneself is that the person is suffering from a terminal illness, which makes the person undergo a lot of crucial pains (Brown & Mitchell, 2010). Dying could make the person rest from the excruciating pain. However, the professional code of ethics and conduct does not allow a medical practitioner to allow a person to end their lives. An ethical dilemma arises, which raises ethical concerns. Here, ethics is about the values and raises the issue of right or wrong. It should be noted that consent is permissive as an ethical issue and cannot be forced (Brown & Mitchell, 2010). Here, only minimal information should be released to address the required problems and provide the necessary solutions.
Document for the ethics committee
The document should consist of an application letter that provides details of the supervisory roles and strategies, the frequency of supervision of the patient, the time taken to supervise the patient, and the boundary that has to be maintained between the patient and the medical practitioner (Brown & Mitchell, 2010). The documentation could enable the committee to be able to assess the level of supervision of the patient, ensure accountability of the practices of the medical personnel, and ensure that the services provided are continuous, and to be able to evaluate the services being offered.
Social contexts of moral values, professional ethics, business or practice standards
The theories of leadership include the servant leadership style, the traits leadership theory, the command and controls leadership style, transactional leadership style, situational leadership, visionary, and relational leadership style. All the leadership style is appropriate for the healthcare environment depending on the ultimate goals to achieve.
Level of congruence of professional ethics
The level of congruence of professional ethics include justice, personal values, competence at the workplace, good personal relationships between the patient and the healthcare provider, effective approach to dealing with personal values, and
Impact of multicultural diversity
Multicultural diversity creates a situation where different values, beliefs, political systems, economic systems, and communities hold beliefs about different issues. The situation creates an environment where certain cultures are strong while others are weak and the perceptions held about certain issues such as confidentiality differs from one culture to the other. Different cultures hold different perceptions about punishment and beliefs, which affect the professional roles of people working in such communities (Brown & Mitchell, 2010).
Role and functions of ethical standards
Ethical standards provide the framework for resolving issues of competent-ethical services and the ethical expectations for professionals working in their environments, which present different ethical issues to be resolved. Ethical standards provide the framework for clarifying the roles of the practitioner in their profession, establish ways of solving problems arising with ethical concerns and provide a framework for standards of behavior in the profession. The ethical standards provide ground for decision making based on analytical reasoning and moral behavior.
References
Brown, M. E., & Mitchell, M. S. (2010). Ethical and unethical leadership. Business Ethics Quarterly, 20(4), 583-616.
Bartels, D. M., & Pizarro, D. A. (2011). The mismeasure of morals: Antisocial personality traits predict utilitarian responses to moral dilemmas. Cognition, 121(1), 154-161.
Post, S. G., Puchalski, C. M., & Larson, D. B. (2000). Physicians and patient spirituality: professional boundaries, competency, and ethics. Annals of internal medicine, 132(7), 578-583.
Seiter, R. P. (2002). Prisoner reentry and the role of parole officers. Fed. Probation, 66 (2),50.