Long-term care is becoming a main component of American health care. Long-term care takes place in hospitals, single-family or group homes, nursing homes, housing with linked services, and specialized day centers; patient populations include children with developmental disabilities, elderly people with physical disabilities and those with Alzheimer's disease, and adults with AIDS. Kasper cites Evashwick's definition of long-term care and home services to include intravenous administration of medicine, devices for mechanical ventilation, meal preparation, and bathing. Providers of health care include skilled nurses, technicians, therapists, family members, and others. Home health care legal and ethical issues pertain to all involved (Kasper, 1997, 274-276). This research paper will focus on ethical issues of privacy, terminal illness, human rights, living wills, making living wills mandatory for medicare, social worker's involvement, autonomy, the family role, termination of life support, and the right to die.
There exists an ethical and legal requirement to protect patient information and home care records, and home healthcare nurses have this responsibility along with health care institutions. Privacy and confidentiality are separate entities, and the protection of one does not necessarily mean the protection of the other. The right to privacy is embodied in the law. The First and Fourteenth Amendments to the Constitution prevent state and federal agencies from invading an individual's privacy:
As the right continued to develop, the right to be left alone became defined as an individual's protection from unreasonable intrusions into his or her private affairs: in other words, the right to keep personal information from others (Brent, 1997, 256).
Home health care concerns with regard to privacy include the use of a patient's likeness or name for economic advantage without patient consent (for example, taking a photo...