The enduring concerns of privacy and confidentiality

As nursing pervades the vast majority of health care, clear and strong cries for protection of individual privacy and confidentiality are warranted. Because nursing is often involved in evaluation and quality care issues, we need to identify those arenas that potentially violate patient and employee rights of privacy and confidentiality and establish strong and clear policies that seek to protect these individuals from unnecessary intrusion. The problems promise to be complex, so the solutions need to be creative. The talent is available, but only if we focus our attention on the tasks at hand will these issues be resolved appropriately.