Legal Issues in Psychiatric/Mental Health Nursing
- Confidentiality and right to privacy
- Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (H I P A A)
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- Individuals have the rights to access their medical records, to have corrections made to their medical records, and to decide with whom their medical information may be shared
- If information is released in an emergency, the following information must be recorded in the client’s record: date of disclosure, person to whom information was disclosed, reason for disclosure, reason written consent could not be obtained, and the specific information disclosed.
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- Doctrine of privileged communication
- Exceptions: A duty to warn; suspected child or elder abuse
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- Assessment of a threat of violence by a client toward another individual
- Identification of the intended victim
- Ability to intervene in a feasible, meaningful way to protect the intended victim
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- Informed consent
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- This is the permission granted to a physician to perform a therapeutic procedure
- Individuals have the right to decide whether to accept or reject treatment.
- Healthcare provider can be charged with assault and battery for providing life-sustaining treatment to a client when the client has not agreed to it.
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- Restraints and seclusion
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- Restraint refers not only to leather restraints but also to any manual method or medication used to restrict a person’s freedom of movement.
- Seclusion is a type of physical restraint in which the client is confined alone in a room from which he or she is unable to leave.
- Injuries and deaths have been associated with restraint and seclusion, this treatment requires careful attention whenever it is used.
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- False imprisonment
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- deliberate and unauthorized confinement of a person within fixed limits by the use of verbal or physical means
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