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Essay / The Importance of Institutional Ethics in Healthcare...
However, for employees working in a healthcare organization, conflicting situations may arise regarding confidentiality. Presenting a case study where HCA disclosed an employee's confidential information, a nurse recently had to increase her work hours due to her financial situation. The nurse was a little worried about the increase because it would be stressful on top of other responsibilities. Due to the stress, the nurse ended up using narcotics to help manage stress levels and anxiety, which seemed to help in providing patient care. Over time, the nurse began treating patients and prescribing medications even though the medications had not been prescribed to them. The nurse was later discovered while working on the surgical unit when the pharmacist noticed an unusual increase in medications as well as signature errors. The incident was reported to HCA for further investigation. After analyzing the situation, the measures taken were to obtain leave and present it to a personnel council. This then results in some form of breach of confidentiality for the nurse with CAH. Nonetheless, HCA feared for patient safety and needed to address a problem that was perhaps more common than it realized. As HCAs, they are charged with a fiduciary duty to protect the mission and values of the organization (Badzek, Mitchell, Marra,