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Maintaining resident confidentiality, part two

LTC Nursing Assistant Trainer, July 29, 2004

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In order to provide residents with proper care, there is always a certain amount of intrusion into areas most people want to keep private, including their health habits and bodily functions. Maintaining confidentiality can be difficult, but good nursing practice means making sure you protect residents' confidentiality and privacy as much as possible.

Here are five steps CNAs and other nursing home staff can take to reduce violations of resident confidentiality. They are as follows:

• Offer only appropriate information when you're asked for it. Do not share more private information than is required.
• Do not access resident data that you should not see.
• Ensure that resident information, including activities of daily living sheets, are not left on desks, table tops, or in resident rooms.
• Ensure that resident information, such as notes from your daily assignments, are disposed of properly. Do not take them home with you.
• If you use a computer to record resident information, turn it off or lock the screen saver when moving away from the computer terminal even for a few minutes.

This is the second in a series. The first five tips to protecting resident confidentiality appeared last week in LTC Nursing Assistant Trainer.

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