As health care agency employees we are required to abide by an oath of confidentiality as the HIPAA act of 1996 requires that the right of an individual to have personal, medical information kept private and secret unless authorized. Breaking the oath calls for immediate dismissal from the job. So faced with this situation, I would take the concerned nurses through the oath highlighting the dangers of their actions to their job, the wellbeing of the patient even after leaving the hospital and the hospitals reputation if this was to be discovered by the concerned patient and the legal consequences.

Electronic storage of patient’s medical information opens the potential for its access to very many people with the ability to gain entry to the data bank. If such medical information is linked to other electronic databases such as the patient’s social security, automobile registration, and other financial records such as credit card purchases, bank records, and credit rating can make it possible for more people to know more about the private lives of others.

In order to guard patient’s confidential information with the use of technology, health care systems should adopt very strict policies and procedures that restrict access to information to those within the system. Confidential data should be encrypted, and computer information systems can programmed and timed to require passwords and to create audit trails automatically.

I strongly believe that electronic availability to medical records mandated the government to introduce the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) of 1996 because all the patients information was centralized and could be accessed at a single point compared to the previous method where patient information was spread across different medical doctors and incase information leaked then it’s a portion that could be spread across the people.