Case Study: Professional Year Program - Ethics and Data Privacy

This case study from a Professional Year Program examines an ethical dilemma related to patient data privacy. The student analyzes a scenario where a nurse risks a data breach by leaving a USB drive containing sensitive patient information at home. The analysis utilizes Chris MacDonald's moral decision-making framework, exploring the nurse's actions through various steps like recognizing the moral dimension, identifying interested parties, considering values, and weighing benefits and burdens. The student also makes recommendations based on the ACS code of ethics, suggesting measures such as data encryption, deletion after use, and avoiding taking sensitive data home. The conclusion emphasizes the severe consequences of data breaches for all stakeholders and highlights the importance of data security protocols. The assignment references relevant literature and legal frameworks like the Privacy Act 1988 and Health Records and Privacy Act 2002.

Running head: PROFESSIONAL YEAR PROGRAM
Professional Environment: Ethics, Professionalism and Governance
Name of the Student
Name of the University
Author Note

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Initial analysis
Overview of the given case study shows an issue regarding the safety of personal
information of the clients. Maintaining the privacy of patient/client information is an
important responsibility of healthcare professionals in Australia. This entails the ownership of
all responsibilities to ensure the data remains safe and secure and prevent any unauthorized
access to the information. Taking and leaving the USB drive containing all the personal
health records of the clients at home was a failure on the part of the nurse to show that
responsibility.
Analysis and recommendation using MacDonalds Framework
The moral decision making framework designed by Chris McDonald can be used to analyze
the case and make recommendations for actions for the nurse. The framework has a number
of steps, each of which can be used to reach particular decisions which can in turn influence
the behavior of the individual (Nicholson and Kurucz 2017; Pollard, 2015).
a. Recognizing the moral dimension: Here the nurse should have identified the moral
significance of maintaining the confidentiality of patient data, comparing it with the
moral obligation to complete a duty.
b. The interested parties and their relationships: Here it is important that the nurse
evaluated how her actions could have impacted the clients if their personal data
somehow got breached and how such a data breach could have also impacted the
reputation of the organization as well as her own credibility.
c. The values that are involved: Here the nurse should have considered the values such
as trust and autonomy which were being broken by her action.

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d. Weighing the benefits and burdens: The action of the nurse was aimed towards the
benefit of completing her work on time by taking the data home while the burden was
to ensure the safety of the data while using it from home and ensuring its security.
e. Looking through analogous cases: Considering other cases of data breach and how
they have impacted the stakeholders could have impressed upon the nurse the
significance of the situation.
f. Discussion with relevant others: Discussions could have been done with supervisors
and administrators regarding the responsibilities and protocols while taking
confidential data home to work on to ensure the nurse knew the right practices.
g. Accordance with legal and organizational rules: Privacy Act 1988, Health Records
and Privacy Act 2002 and Privacy Amendment Act 2012 outlines the laws and
policies related to the safety and privacy of personal information which needed to be
considered in this scenario.
h. Comfort level with the decision: My assessment is that the nurse should never have
taken such sensitive information back home and risks its privacy breach.
(Nicholson and Kurucz 2017; Pollard, 2015)
Recommendations as per ACS code
In accordance to the ACS code, few recommendations can be made which could have
prevented the risk the loss of privacy of the data:
i. Encrypting the data on the USB drive to ensure it is not accessed by any unauthorized
person
ii. Deleting the data on the USB drive after its utility was over
iii. Not forgetting the USB drive at home
iv. Not taking the USB drive with sensitive data home

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(Acs.org.au 2018; Matthews et al., 2016)
Conclusion
From the discussion above it can be understood that by carrying and then forgetting
the USB drive containing personal and sensitive information of clients/patients, the nurse
risked the data being breached with severe consequences for all stakeholders. However, that
could have been avoided by encrypting the data, or deleting after uses or better still by never
forgetting it at home or completing the work at office.

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References:
Acs.org.au (2018). Privacy Policy | ACS. [online] Acs.org.au. Available at:
https://www.acs.org.au/privacy-policy.html [Accessed 26 Nov. 2018].
Matthews, G.J., Harel, O. and Aseltine, R.H., 2016. Privacy protection and aggregate health
data: a review of tabular cell suppression methods (not) employed in public health data
systems. Health Services and Outcomes Research Methodology, 16(4), pp.258-270.
Nicholson, J. and Kurucz, E., 2017. Relational Leadership for Sustainability: Building an
Ethical Framework from the Moral Theory of ‘Ethics of Care’. Journal of Business Ethics,
pp.1-19.
Pollard, C., 2015. What is the right thing to do: use of a relational ethic framework to guide
clinical decision-making. Int J Caring Sci, 8(2), pp.362-8.

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