Scenario 2 comes with many challenges and ethical dilemmas due to the
severity of the problem. I work for the Veterans Healthcare and certain staff
members are issued a laptop and cellphone to provide telehealth by either
video conference or phone calls which provide continuity of care. The laptops
are also used for veteran’s outreach program to ensure that all veterans could
register with the Veterans Healthcare facility to receive medical care. Many
veterans have changed their modality of their medical visits to video
conference or phone visit to lower the risk of COVID exposure due to their
compromised immune systems. The IT department takes extra measures that
the security software is up to date which will reduce the risk of cyber threats. In
the most recent years there has been an increase in health care data breach by
laptop users which has patient information, this is a federal violation under
HIPAA (West, K.).
As a VA employee and if I lost my laptop, I need to reach out to the IT help
desk and inform them of the incident so they can start the process of disabling
my account to reduce the data breach. The most important step of reporting the
incident to be clear and honest of the situation and how it happened to ensure
that patient information is not compromised which will avoid any HIPAA
violations. Reporting the incident and providing full details is the ethically
right thing to do which will avoid additional repercussions. As the temporary
owner of the laptop, it is my responsibility to ensure that I always have any
sensitive items in my possession at all times regardless of the situation. Any
punishment that is bestowed upon me would only be fair because I put patient
and company information at risk for violation.
West K. (2014). Patient medical information at risk from stolen computers.
Missouri medicine, 111(1), 10–12.
