Back to: Linking to Care, Point of Care Testing (POCT). Aotearoa Edition
Welcome to medical in confidence, an incredibly important aspect of Health Network Collective practice, and an incredibly important aspect of maintaining our credibility, professionalism and good conduct. We will explore Medical Ethics in the next lesson to develop a good grounded understanding for the third lesson in this section, behavior.
Let’s start with a few definitions, and we will keep these definitions at a level relevant to our needs.
- Medical ((Adjective): of, relating to, or concerned with physicians or the practice of medicine.: requiring or devoted to medical treatment).
- Health ((Noun), the condition of the body and the degree to which it is free from illness, or the state of being well)
The term medical has a very direct relationship to and with the term health. In terms of our wai ora, their physical and mental state, and in terms of the fact they are wai ora, persons seeking wellness (or health). Therefore, having an understanding of the terms makes some sense. Now we can add ‘In Confidence’;
- In Confidence (as a secret or private matter, not to be divulged or communicated to others; with belief in a person’s sense of discretion.)
Statutory laws are laws determined by Acts of Parliament, or Government. These legislations or acts govern our privacy and the data that is considered to be part of our privacy. We won’t go into defining data in depth, aside from a consideration that any investigations, treatment, or disclosure of information with or from an individual in regards medical or health, is data in the context of this lesson. These statutory laws do have an impact on our practice, specifically in digital data management, however these are encompassed in our data policies that can be viewed at https://hoopernewton.com/privacy
Common law (“body of law” based on court decisions rather than codes or statutes) best describes the level of knowledge we need for our level of practice, there is a duty of confidentiality which means that when a patient/service user shares data or information in confidence it must not be disclosed without that person’s consent.
For us, the impacts and meaning are that;
- Discussions between you and the wai ora are just that. In Confidence translates to the discussions are not repeated by you to other parties or disclosed in way or form.
- Data that is recorded into the Health Network Collective app is In Confidence, the same principle applies.
Exceptions;
- Our only exception. In the case of engaging with a medical professional in relation to wai ora treatment or enquiry we recommend that you keep your disclosure of wai ora information to the data you are required to record in the mobile application with testing, and test results only. We do not enter into discussions with personal opinion or personal recommendations unless this is requested by the medical professional you are engaged with.
- In the event you do need to have such a discussion make sure you are not in hearing distance of other people, or recording in confidence data or information in such a way it could be accidentally seen by other people.
There are occasions where you may find it is difficult to recognise the boundaries of Medical in Confidence and acting in the best interest of your wai ora. We will take a pragmatic look at this in Lesson 8 POCT Behavior, and create some work streams or approaches that might help in certain circumstance. To help with this let’s start with defining;
- Mental Health The World Health Organisation (WHO) constitution states: “Health is a state of complete physical, mental and social well-being and not merely the absence of disease or infirmity.” An important implication of this definition is that mental health is more than just the absence of mental disorders or disabilities. Mental health is a state of well-being in which an individual realizes his or her own abilities, can cope with the normal stresses of life, can work productively and is able to make a contribution to his or her community.
Before we can start to look towards management of these situations and what options we may have in management of such situations, understand that mental health is an absolute component of Health Network Collectives development framework Te Whare Tapa Whā. Specifically taha wairua (spiritual wellbeing), and taha hinengaro (mental and emotional wellbeing) as we discussed in section 1 of this course. Mental Health covers wellbeing, being well, and illness or the state of not being well.
Our previous lessons on guidelines, obligations, working with others, and this lesson on Medical in Confidence all become factors in how we interact with not just our wai ora, but all people in and around our practice. Our community level practice means we are privy to very personal information, often from both our wai ora and the kaiawhina / peers that we collaborate and coordinate our work with. In forging these relationships open honest clear concise and transparent conversation is an enabler and essential part of relationship forming. This is where we all need to be cautious and aware of what we saying and to whom. In the simplest of terms, if the intended conversation content meets any of the definitions we have discussed in this lesson, don’t say it, don’t write it, keep it confidential.
Our next lesson, Lesson 7 POCT Medical Ethics Part one, will inform you and assist in guiding where when and how we can discuss or share Medical in Confidence information and data.
Use your common sense.
