Pros and Cons of Establishing a Patient Portal System

What are the pros and cons of establishing a patient portal system for a healthcare organization in the seven ethical principles?

Identify the problems related to maintaining patient confidentiality and the processes a nurse informaticist should utilize to maximize the integrity of such a system.

The patient portal system is an application that was developed in the late 1990s to ensure that patients at healthcare facilities get to know about their health and also have an easier way of communicating with the nurse informaticists. The system was first launched in 2005, from which full adoption started. It has helped different healthcare facilities in activities such as easy registration of patient records, online booking of appointments, and secure communication, among many others. However, it also has its cons which will be explained in this paper. The paper will also explain the issues related to the confidentiality of the system and the process nurses use to maximize its integrity.

Pros of a patient portal system

According to the seven ethical principles, the seven ethical principles include: autonomy, privacy, confidentiality, freedom, fidelity, veracity, beneficence, nonmaleficence, and accountability health care facilities provide patients with freedom while using the system. Patients have the freedom to provide consent, especially when they understand the information required or been asked for. Sometimes they are consulted, and they give disclosure their health information. They have a close individual or relative who can be regarded as their decision-maker. It is very accommodating for the patient, making them feel like they have freedom of choice at the health care facility. The decision maker becomes helpful in situations where the client has been deemed incompetent due to health issues.

Fidelity. The patient portal system has been customized in a way that makes it hard for a third party to access the information that a patient keys in. the loyalty, faithfulness, and honoring of engagements in the system help boost the system's fidelity. Trustworthy systems make the patient open freely at any time, thus making the treatment process easy.

The patient portal system can make patients make their own decisions concerning the things affecting them. The portal system does not affect the choices made by the patients. If a patient seeks to see a doctor, they will be set up for an appointment at a time of their choosing unless it is a matter that needs excellent urgency.

Cons of a patient portal system in terms of the seven ethical principles.

Like any other technology, patient portal systems have weaknesses that might need to be addressed to make them more effective.

According to Wolff et al. (2022), the patient portal system does not provide privacy to the users. The authors explain that there is shared access to the portal, which makes private information about patients unsafe. It happens most especially with older adults who have cognitive vulnerability.

These systems allow caregivers to share access to personal data with patients.

The patient portal systems inhibit the patient's autonomy. The organization is responsible for deciding which information should be shared between the caregivers and the patients. On the contrary, the patient should have a right to restrict their data and decide what information needs to be shared. An individual's health record may contain sensitive information that the patient might not want to share with a care partner. Also, patients may want their caregiver to communicate with their other health care specialists, i.e., physician or psychiatrist, but may not want to share some information with them.

The system might be difficult to access, patients fall under different generations, and the older generation might get some challenges accessing the services of this system. It makes the patient frustrated and stressed.

Technology is prone to hackers' attacks, which raises a concern about the patient's security of their data. The health care facilities might not be fully equipped with their cyber security department to protect the patient's information. It becomes a challenge and might scare away patients from adding sensitive data to the system.

The patient portal system might not provide nonmaleficence to the users. They contain very ambiguous obligations and issues accessing the health records in the platform. It might be traumatic for the patients and hence might harm them.

Healthcare facilities neglect the harm caused by these platforms to their users. Hence, they lack accountability and a follow-up approach. Some clinical officers believe that this ignorance might increase more risks.

Literature review on issues related to maintaining patient confidentiality while using a patient portal system

With the increased rate of involvement in health and technologies, such as information systems and social media, balancing patient privacy and the need for medical data is a complex and challenging situation, and this has become an area of concern. Juggling privacy concerns with patient information requests poses opportunities and challenges in the age of social media and participatory health. Thanks to participatory health-enabling technologies, more people are taking an active role in controlling their health. These activities usually include exchanging health information, resulting in a persistent conflict between individual needs and the need to safeguard privacy and confidentiality (Tegegne et al.,2022).

The study's findings revealed that, while health professionals usually have a positive understanding of patient confidentiality, their attitudes toward it are limited (Househ et al., 2018). To improve health workers' awareness of and attitude toward patient confidentiality, it may be prudent to give them ongoing medical ethics training before they begin working at the hospital and throughout their tenure.

Process used by the nurse informaticist to maximize the integrity of the patient portal system

Several things can be done to improve patient integrity in the patient portal system. The first thing is to create a safe patient experience in the portal system. When a patient gets the feeling of being in safe hands during the whole treatment process will make them offer so much information on what they are feeling and disclose all the relevant information that will be useful in the treatment process (Tegegne et al., 2022).

The second thing is to create simple and timely appointments. By doing this, all patients will be fully aware of the time and day they will be meeting their physicians and thus prepare adequately for what they have been feeling all along (Tegegne et al.,2022). Lastly, by encouraging family and caregivers to engage in the whole process. Caregivers are usually very close to the patients than doctors and nurses. Thus, they play a significant role in the examination process.

References

Wolff, J. L., Dukhanin, V., Burgdorf, J. G., & DesRoches, C. M. (2022). Shared Access to Patient Portals for Older Adults: Implications for Privacy and Digital Health Equity. JMIR aging, 5(2), e34628.

Tegegne, M. D., Melaku, M. S., Shimie, A. W., Hunegnaw, D. D., Legese, M. G., Ejigu, T. A., ... & Chanie, A. F. (2022). A cross-sectional study of health professionals' knowledge and attitude towards patient confidentiality and associated factors in a resource-limited setting. BMC Medical Ethics, 23(1), 1-10.

Househ, M., Grainger, R., Petersen, C., Bamidis, P., & Merolli, M. (2018). A scoping review balances privacy and patient needs for health information in the age of participatory health and social media. Yearbook of medical informatics, 27(01), 029-036