Disseminating scholarship through journal articles and conference presentations

¶ … precise reason of focusing the concern on Research and Scholarship is based on the fact that by understanding the importance of research and development the prevailing health care issues will be satisfied by the logical input provided by the nursing staff. The current laws pertaining to the privacy of medical records of the state are bitty and vague. The effectiveness of these laws can be observed at state level but yet the data is revealed for a few reasons, mainly to formulate new medication for the cure of infections and diseases. On the federal level database protection of the medical records follows the privacy act of 1974 that provides a restricted protection of these records. Altogether it does not safeguard the privacy of people affected by disease like HIV / AIDS. The U.S. Supreme Court in 1997 upheld the constitutionality to safeguard the privacy of the people for the invasion of private agencies. Irrespective of constitutionally imposes obligations of maintaining the privacy all the states of USA are not following the prescribed laws but a clear patchwork is observed in the implementation of these laws (Confidentiality of Medical Records).

Rationale

The American Health Information Management System (AHIMS) is working effectively to ensure the privacy concerns of Americans. It works on five basic principles to maintain the standard of prescribed privacy of the medical records and history of the patients. Two of the five principles are explained.

The first one relates to the statement of Secretary Shalala that mentions that maintaining the privacy and confidentiality of the patients and disclosing it only in the case when new healthcare advancements are required. Being a medical professional my high priority would be to be a utilitarianism that is working for the good of large number of people that is social welfare.

Similarly it also works on the principle of accountability. This is a check and balance system of the records. This implies that any individual who leaks the information for any illegal purpose will be punished. This will cultivate a sense of lawfulness among the management of AHIMS (Melton, 2000)

The question of the privacy and confidentiality of medical records was posed to U.S. department of Health and Human Services Secretary Donna E. Shalala to which she responded that the computer revolution has created havoc as per the privacy measures of the state. No one can assure that the database recorded in their computer belongs to them only. She added that with the advancement in the biology, communication and healthcare it is entirely depended on the hands that are using the information. The medical records can be used to serve humanity as well as curse humanity.

The healthcare system provides legal basis of sharing the medical records of its patients under a few circumstances. For example if an infectious person is admitted in the emergency department of the hospital, the records and history of that patient can be legally shared with the pharmacies so that they can formulate new drugs to overcome that infection. This will in turn be of a societal significance, as the newly formulated medicine will help others to cure that infection.