Consider the following scenario.
Stephanie is a human-services policy analyst who works with the state-run psychiatric hospital system. Her job is to facilitate discharges of patients to the community by coordinating with local mental-health centers and providers of care to make sure that the patient has adequate and immediate post-discharge care. Stephanie received a call from a parole officer of a 25-year-old undocumented-immigrant patient named Kevin, who was in the hospital. The parole officer indicated that Kevin violated parole by abusing illegal substances prior to the admission to the state hospital. The parole officer asked questions about Kevins diagnoses, where he was being discharged to, and the staff involved in his care while hospitalized. You have been asked to determine if Stephanie can legally and ethically answer these questions and provide confidential health information about Kevin to the parole officer.
For this milestone, you will submit a draft of the review of the case, including all critical elements listed below. Using the information reviewed for Milestone One, discuss information that can and cannot be released to a parole officer, particularly information about an individual who has a substance abuse diagnosis along with mental illness, and is being discharged from a psychiatric facility to the community. A state statute from your state of residence can provide information related to parole of individuals previously incarcerated. Provide an example of how an inappropriate release of confidential information can be remediated in order to prevent a lawsuit against the human services professional (HSP) and/or the agency. Some State Departments of Health and Human Services have information related to this issue. Make sure to review both federal and state statutes to gain a more comprehensive viewpoint.
Specifically, the following critical elements must be addressed:
Review of the Case
Based on your analysis of the codes of ethics and legal considerations in human services, create strategies to address questions about the case.
What information can be released to the parole officer? What information should not be released to the parole officer? Justify your responses.
If information is released that should not be, what are the legal ramifications for the human services professional and her organization? Justify your claims with relevant, scholarly research.
What are the ethical issues that would arise for the policy analyst and her organization due to releasing information that should not be released? Recommend appropriate legal strategies to mitigate identified ethical issues.
