On Professional Ethics
Vaccine passports go against the very ethics of Health Information Management.
From the beginning, I have been vehemently against the pushed vaccine passports here in British Columbia and elsewhere. I am also fully against mandates. This has lead to quite a lot of pushback from people I know and some I don’t, who assume I am an “anti-vaxxer” because I am speaking out about this topic.
Perhaps it comes down to confusion about my professional ethics, which inform my position on this. I wrote this post in the hopes it would explain things to people.
The original version of this post appeared as a public Facebook status on my personal profile.
I work in Health Information Management. My professional ethics are about privacy, confidentiality, and continuity of care as it relates to chart information.
You know, the non-glamorous side of healthcare.
Just because it's not glamorous doesn't mean it isn't absolutely vital. And just because we are in "unprecedented" times doesn't mean I can fling my professional ethics out the window.
Without accurate information in the chart, people slip through the cracks. When they slip through the cracks, they die. (Yes, even before Covid -- I know! PEOPLE DIED BEFORE COVID. WEIRD, RIGHT?)
Your phone number on your chart is incorrect? You don't get the call from your doc about abnormal test results.
One small, fictitious example. I'm sure you can think of plenty of others.
Accuracy of information is crucial to patient care. It's part of my job to make sure we have the most accurate information we can in your chart so that you don't slip through the cracks.
And keeping that information within the circle of care and not letting it leak out is also vital to patient care.
That is what privacy and confidentiality is all about. The only people who need to know your medical information are yourself and the people directly involved with your care.
That means the doctors and nurses who are treating you. Sometimes it includes other professionals in the facility, depending on what the information is -- but even then, the info might be general, not specific. "Contact and droplet precautions" means "wear extra PPE when interacting with this patient for your own safety" -- it doesn't tell you exactly what they have or might have, and it shouldn't.
When I register you for the ER, I need to know some stuff. I need your name, and I need to verify that all your contact information is up to date. This is for continuity of care, and for patient care on a more personal, emotional level.
I also need to know some information about why you're presenting to the ER. If it's a Worker's Comp injury, for example, there are a lot of details I need to put in so that your Worksafe claim will go through without issue (continuity of care).
If not, I need less detail -- but still an idea of severity, so I can alert the nurses if they need to get out there right away. I'm not a triage nurse, but I do some level of it in my job -- enough to know when someone with more training than I have needs to take a closer look right now.
I DO NOT NEED TO KNOW YOUR VACCINATION STATUS. (For any vaccination.) And hopefully I never will.
The absolute only situation in which I might need to know if you've had a recent vaccine or not is if you are presenting with a vaccine injury.
(Those exist, by the way, with all vaccines. It's not "an anti-vaxxer conspiracy theory". Vaccine injuries have existed as long as vaccines have, because bodies are different and sometimes people have reactions to things. Also when a new vaccine comes out, often there are bumps in the road. Research the history of the polio vaccine if you don't believe me.)
But mostly, I don't need to know that stuff. It's not my business. It's not needed for continuity of care.
While my job is crucial to keep the wheels of healthcare turning, and while I like to think I help keep people from falling through the cracks, I do not directly keep people from dying at all costs.
I mean, you can't keep people from dying at all costs. It's just.... People die. It sucks, but they always have and they always will. We just try to mitigate it as much as possible -- push it off for as long as possible. You can't stop it altogether.
But even if you could, it wouldn't be [directly] part of my job.
What IS part of my job -- and thus, my professional ethics -- is patient privacy. (And, to a larger extent, patient rights in general, but I'm mostly talking about privacy here.)
So, knowing that about me -- knowing that my professional ethics are about patient rights -- and knowing, now, as you do, that even I, the person registering you for the ER, do not have a right to your vaccination status ---
knowing all this, on what planet do you think I would be in support of a passport that lets the workers at a restaurant know your vaccine status?
On what planet would I be in support of something that so clearly violates your rights to patient privacy?
If I cannot call my husband's doctor up and demand to know if he's been vaccinated or not, but I can take him out to dinner and find out from the hostess at The Keg, do you not see something seriously wrong with this picture?
Do you NOT see how that would DIRECTLY contradict my professional ethics as a person working in Health Information Management?
People die. It sucks, and I hope that my work helps it not happen when it shouldn't.
But people dying from a virus doesn't mean I get to fling my ethics out the window. Doesn't matter if it's a new virus or an old one.
Vaxxports and mandates go against those ethics, because they violate patient rights.
I will defend patient rights for as long as I am able to. Even if it gets me called an anti-vaxxer, or a traitor, or a plague rat, or any other of the lovely things I've been called lately.
Better than staying silent, and being unable to look at myself in the mirror.