Legal and Ethical Obligations of Nurses in Healthcare

This article discusses the legal and ethical obligations of nurses in healthcare, focusing on patient confidentiality and privacy. It explores the Texas Nurse Practice Act and the Code of Ethics for Nurses, highlighting the importance of respecting patients' rights and promoting their health. The article concludes with a discussion on the dilemma faced by a nurse and provides a perspective on balancing legal obligations and ethical considerations.

Nursing
1/11/2019
Student’s Name

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Nurse and doctors are the significant healthcare professionals that owe a duty of care to
patients (Peate, 2013). They are required to take every step very carefully and it becomes the
responsibility of them to act in the best possible manner for the patient. Every nation has certain
legislation on the topic of healthcare that governs the behavior of healthcare professionals. If to
talk about the US, every state has its own Nurse practice Act that consists of provisions related to
healthcare practitioners and regulate the practices of the same. In conjunction with the Nurse
Practice Act, some other laws are also there in the US, which a healthcare professional needs to
be aware of such as standard of practices. Apart from the legal obligations, a healthcare
professional also has some ethical obligations towards the patients. In the US, the code of ethics
and social policy documents are the two important documents, which prescribed the ethical
responsibility of nurses.
In the given case, Lena is facing an ethical dilemma that whether she should inform her
sister about the health status of her boyfriend or not. Here, in order to provide advice to Lena,
one needs to check the legal and ethical position of the same first. If to talk about law, the Texas
board of nursing issued rules and regulations related to nursing and practices. These rules consist
of the Standards of Nursing Practice under section 217.11. These standards are applicable to all
the nurses. According to these standards, nurses are required to keep the information related to a
patient safe and secure. This is a legal obligation of every nurse to respect the client’s right to
privacy by keeping the confidential information with him/her. Further to say that a nurse cannot
disclose such information unless the same is required or approved by the virtue of a law. In
addition to the Texas Nursing Board’s minimum standard of nursing practice, healthcare privacy
law of federal and states also prevent the healthcare professionals to disclose the confidential
information related to the patients. Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996

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(HIPPA) and Texas Medical Records Privacy Act are two important legislation that provide
national standards to protect the medical and health-related other personal information of a client
(patient). According to the HIPAA privacy rule, a patient has right over their health information
and if they want, they can get a copy of their health records and can ask for the corrections too.
All these are the legal obligations on the nurse that they have to follow while practicing their
profession and performing their duties.
Now, moving the focus towards ethical obligations of nurses in Texas, Code of Ethics
provided by the American Nurse Association needs to be reviewed. The code helps the nurses to
perform their duties with dignity and care. As the name implies the code of ethics let the nurses
know what they should do in order to bring out the best positive results. This code consists of
nine provisions (Nursingworld.org, 2018). According to the provision, 4 of the code have
responsibility, accountability, and authority for nursing practices. They have to take the decisions
and can proceed with the action to promote the health. Further provision 5 of the code states that
a nurse owes a duty to promote health, to preserve the integrity and to carry personal and
professional growth (Vcuhealth.org, 2018). Now, Lena is in a dilemma as she has a legal
obligation to keep the health information of her sister’ boyfriend confidential and on the other
side, she has an ethical duty to provide safety to her sister.
After reviewing the legal and ethical situation of Lena, legal obligations and code of
ethics this is to conclude that if I was there at the place of Lena, I would let my sister know about
the true health condition of her boyfriend in order to protect the health of my sister. The federal,
as well as state law of Texas does not allow doing the same yet this seems to be the right
conclusion. Ethics always think about the goodness of many people instated a single person.
Here in the situation, sharing of information of her boyfriend can secure a life. Further, law

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develops based on ethics and in case of conflict between the two, one is advised to look after the
ethics, not always but in that situation where giving the priority to ethics can lead some positive
results in comparison to considering the law.

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References
Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996
Nursingworld.org. (2018). Code of Ethics for Nurses. Retrieved From:
https://www.nursingworld.org/nurses-books/code-of-ethics-for-nurses/
Peate, I. (2013). The Student Nurse Toolkit: An Essential Guide for Surviving Your Course. UK:
John Wiley & Sons
Texas Medical Records Privacy Act
Vcuhealth.org. (2018). ANA Code of Ethics. Retrieved From: https://www.vcuhealth.org/for-
medical-professionals/nursing/about-nursing-at-vcu/ana-code-ethics