Global Healthcare: Addressing Patient Confidentiality Challenges

This essay addresses patient confidentiality as a critical global healthcare issue, emphasizing the importance of the doctor-patient privilege and the ethical considerations surrounding it. It explores various laws and guidelines, such as the Good Medical Practice standards, which aim to protect patient privacy. The essay examines scenarios that can lead to unintentional breaches of confidentiality and their impact on patients and families, using a case study to illustrate the consequences. It then delves into the application of principles from Catholic social teaching, including human dignity and shared responsibility, to advocate for better policies and community engagement to improve patient confidentiality on both local and global scales. The essay highlights the need for societal attitude changes and increased awareness through community workshops and educational campaigns to ensure the protection of patient privacy and promote the common good.

Running head: GLOBAL ISSUE IN HEALTH CARE
Global issue in health care
Name of the student:
Name of the university:
Author note:

1GLOBAL ISSUE IN HEALTH CARE
For this essay, patient confidentiality issue has been selected to be the most pressing
global common good issues and there is a plethora of reasons justifying the selection. First and
foremost, it has to be understood in this context that the hypocritical oath is central to the
practice of a physician or a care provider and maintaining the patient-doctor privilege is a
fundamental element of the oath; which the care providers have to abide by under any
circumstances. According to the Peña-Lópe (2015), a care professional can not disclose the
confidential information shared by a patient to any third party without the conscious consent of
the patient or elected decision maker. There are various laws and legislation protecting the
patients against violation of doctor-patient privilege as well. For instance, the Good Medical
practice standards are a set of curated guidelines that guide the doctors to make the most ethical
and clinically reasonable, justified decision by the patient and following this standard is
mandatory for all care professionals. According to the standard 3.4 of Good medical practice, it
is essential for the doctor to “Treat information about patients as confidential”, “Sharing
information appropriately consistent with privacy law and professional guidelines about
confidentiality”, “Use informed consent for the release and exchange of health information” and
“Ensuring use of social media is consistent with your ethical and legal obligations to protect
patient confidentiality and privacy” (Medicalboard.gov.au, 2018).
However, it has to be mentioned that the scenario of health care often gives rise to
various scenarios that can complicate the pathway of safeguarding the confidential information
of the patients, and hence the breach of confidentiality in certain situation can be unintentional.
However, regardless of the fact that the act had been intentional or unintentional, the impact is
same on the patient and the family members whose confidentiality has been breached. According
to the Audi (2012), the concept confidentiality protection comes from the testimonial privilege,

2GLOBAL ISSUE IN HEALTH CARE
and the primary reason behind the implementation of the privilege had been to protect the patient
privacy. According to the Melé (2009), the breach of patient confidentiality is translated to civil
liability to the physician and can cost a medical practitioner gravely. However, there has been
much debate over the medical ethics associated with the concept of confidentiality in health care.
Often sharing the information of the patient is necessary for the health care professional to
protect the best interests of the patient. In support, Sullivan (2013), has stated that in many
circumstances a physician is permitted to overlap if not violate the patient confidentiality, such
as in order to protect a patient from harm or to protect a third party from the harm that the patient
intentionally or unintentionally is going to inflict. For the case study associated with this
assignment the doctor had mistakenly sent a wrong file which had confidential information of a
terminally ill cancer patient, which resulted in his son, who had been an intern in the facility, to
commit suicide not being able to bear the news. Later the doctor had also been convicted for
second hand murder although it had not been an intentional or malicious act by the doctor.
Hence, it can be stated that the care scenario can become blurry often which can lead to
unintentional breach of the patient confidentiality and hence there is a need for a strategic
intervention to address this issue (Donley et al., 2006).
The shared responsibility of common good has exceptional value in the construct of
society and as a result there have been many sociological researches devoted to better
understating the empirical paradigm of common good into the applicable scenario of the human
society. However, the concept of common good and shared responsibility among all the different
members of the society is not just limited to the aesthetics of community engagement and
participation. This theoretical concept can be applied to management and addressing of a varied
range of different social issues as well. In order to address the issue of maintaining patient

3GLOBAL ISSUE IN HEALTH CARE
confidentiality, aspect of human dignity, shared responsibility of common good and principles of
catholic social teaching is to be used. According to the first principle of the catholic social
teaching, life and dignity of a human being are needed to be respected above everything else.
Elaborating more, the principles proclaim that “human life is sacred and that the dignity of the
human person is the foundation of a moral vision for society” (Principles Of Catholic Social
Teaching, 2018). Hence, each and every act of a human being towards the others has to be
respectful to the dignity of the human being. In this case, it has to be mentioned that for the
patient doctor scenario as well, there is a need for the realization that the privacy and
confidentiality of a person is fundamentally associated with dignity and hence even an
unintentional act can not violate the dignity. According to the concept of shared responsibility of
common good, also state that the shared life where each and everyone can flourish. Hence, the
promotional activity for better maintenance of patient confidentiality has to incorporate shared
contribution from all the stakeholders from the society. It has to be mentioned that there is a need
for advocacy to address the need of privacy protection of the patients in terms of better policies
and protocols invested in the protection of the human dignity of the patients while dealing with
their personal information which is devastating to them, but when shared to the mob can be
ridiculed or discriminated (Dheensa, Fenwick &Lucassen 2016). Without the active efforts of all
the stakeholders of the society performing some form of advocacy and taking the shared
responsibility of common good, these strategies cannot be implemented in reality. According to
the third principle of CST, “the different individuals must correspond to these rights are duties
and responsibilities–to one another, to our families, and to the larger society”. Hence, there is
need for inclusion of all of the members of the society in the advocacy strategy for policy
making and implementation for better protection of the patient confidentiality (Principles Of

4GLOBAL ISSUE IN HEALTH CARE
Catholic Social Teaching, 2018). And this can be the first strategy to promote better maintenance
of patient confidentiality in a local setting.
However in order to change the scenario of patient confidentiality in the global setting,
there is a need for changing the attitude of the society and the awareness levels of the different
individuals of the society. Community engagement can play a fundamental role in
implementation of this strategy. According to the second principle of CST, “people have a right
and a duty to participate in society, seeking together the common good and well-being of all,
especially the poor and vulnerable” (Principles Of Catholic Social Teaching, 2018). Hence, each
and every individual has a responsibility towards safeguarding the common good of the society
and to address the global issue in the society. Hence the promotional campaigning must include
community engagement in the form of workshops and seminars and along with educational
campaigns which will aware the rest of the society regarding the need for promoting protection
of patient confidentiality.

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don't feel that.’Patient views about consent, confidentiality and information-sharing in
genetic medicine. Journal of medical ethics, 42(3), 174-179.
Donley, S. R., Grandjean, C., Jairath, N., & McMullen, P., 2006. Nursing and the Common
Good November-December 2006.
Gottemoeller, S. D. Advocacy as an Expression of Charity.
Medical Board of Australia - Good medical practice: a code of conduct for doctors in Australia.
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Melé, D., 2009. Integrating personalism into virtue-based business ethics: The personalist and
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Peña-López, I. (2015). Rethinking Education. Towards a global common good?.
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