Communication and Confidentiality in Healthcare

1.1 Identify sources of information and support or services to enable more effective communication?

What sources of information and support or services allows more effective communication?

The sources of information and support to be used in making effective communication are translator devices, patient’s diagnostics data, email, television and others. The translator devices are those that use software to translate text or any speech from one language to another immediately (Chen et al. 2017). The patient’s diagnostic reports inform about the existing health condition and vital health status of the individual (Nelson et al. 2015). I used the child’s diagnostic report as the source of information to identify key needs of the autistic child and mention proper reason to the child and his parents during interaction about the nature of care plan chosen.

What services are to be used to enable more effective communication?

I used sign language communication services to interact with an autistic child of 5 years. This is because I do not have knowledge regarding the way to use sign languages and the child due to autism has speech deficiency that has result him to use sign languages mostly for communication. Thus, to execute my responsibility of communicating with the child to offer him care I used the service where a sign language communicator communicated my verbal information through signs to the service user. In addition, in the process, the translator informed the replies of the service users to me in words to develop effective communication between me and the child.

1.2 Explain the term ‘confidentiality’?

What do you mean by confidentiality?

Confidentiality is referred to keeping away of personal information from the public (English and Ford, 2018). In my settings, I understood that confidentiality is to keep the patient’s personal and health data protected so that it is not exposed to any unknown person or the public.

What are the principles of confidentiality?

The principles of confidentiality are to respect decision regarding the protection of information regarding an individual and accessing consent of the person before sharing the information (Dheensa et al. 2017). In my settings, I always ensured that child’s health and personal data remain properly protected through password in the computer and are not be shared with any health professional or other individuals without taking prior consent for doing so from the child or his parents.

1.3 Describe situations where information normally considered to be confidential might need to be passed on?

In which situation confidential information is to be passed on?

The confidential information is to be passed on when the service user is seen to be at risk or being harmed (Guo and Shi, 2017). In my settings, the autistic child I was caring for reported that there is another service provider in the setting who misbehaves with him and communicate in angry manner to his queries and needs but he do not want me to report against the person as he fear he would later harm him. However, I breached the confidentiality and reported concerned authorities to take action as I feel that the child was at risk of being harmed by the other service provider.

How confidential information is to be passed on?

The confidential information is to be passed on in such a way so that only the individuals who are required to know the information to ensure health and social care improvement for the patients are informed and not others (Wallis et al. 2018). Thus, in my settings, while I was communicating the confidential information about threats to the child I ensured that it reaches only the authorised people to take actions and not others or the service provider as it may lead the individual to take vulnerable actions against the child.

1.4 Explain how and when to seek advice about confidentiality?

When to seek advice regarding confidentiality?

The advice regarding confidentiality is to be taken when an individual is unable to understand the way personal information of a patient is to be protected as well as risk or harm to them can be avoided (Romdhani, 2017). In my settings, I seek advice about confidentiality when I was to share the personal information of an autistic pateint that he has refused to be shared. This is because I did not know how the information is to be communicated with others in protected manner so that safety, as well as respect of the child, is maintained.

How to seek advice regarding confidentiality?

The advice regarding confidentiality is to be taken from the higher officials who are supervising the work to be done through systematic and formal way (Williams and Pigeot, 2017). Thus, in my settings, I communicated in a formal and protected manner with my manager who instructed as well as helped me regarding the procedure to be followed in sharing the information.

References

Chen, X., Acosta, S. and Barry, A.E., 2017. Machine or human? Evaluating the quality of a language translation mobile app for diabetes education material. JMIR diabetes, 2(1), p.e13.

Dheensa, S., Fenwick, A. and Lucassen, A., 2017. Approaching confidentiality at a familial level in genomic medicine: a focus group study with healthcare professionals. BMJ open, 7(2), p.e012443.

English, A. and Ford, C., 2018. Adolescent Health, Confidentiality in Healthcare, and Communication with Parents. The Journal of pediatrics, 199, pp.11-13.

Guo, R. and Shi, H., 2017. Confidentiality-Preserving Personal Health Records in Tele-Healthcare System Using Authenticated Certificateless Encryption. IJ Network Security, 19(6), pp.995-1004.

Nelson, E.C., Eftimovska, E., Lind, C., Hager, A., Wasson, J.H. and Lindblad, S., 2015. Patient reported outcome measures in practice. Bmj, 350, p.g7818.

Romdhani, I., 2017. Confidentiality and Security for IoT Based Healthcare. Securing the Internet of Things, pp.133-139.

Wallis, K.A., Eggleton, K.S., Dovey, S.M., Leitch, S., Cunningham, W.K. and Williamson, M.I., 2018. Research using electronic health records: balancing confidentiality and public good. Journal of primary health care, 10(4), pp.288-291.

Williams, G. and Pigeot, I., 2017. Consent and confidentiality in the light of recent demands for data sharing. Biometrical Journal, 59(2), pp.240-250.