Procedures For Releasing Information Of Minors In ABC Hospital

You are the HIM Assistant Director at ABC hospital. In recent weeks, there have been several questions emerge about releasing information of minors. You have been asked to compose a procedure that addresses a minor's release of information to adoptive parents, biological parents of adopted minors, noncustodial parents, foster parents, and to an emancipated minor. Create that procedure for each type of release and note whether or not releasing information is appropriate.

Procedures for releasing information of minors to adoptive parents

In most situations people are capable of taking important decisions related to their health and well being. However, under certain circumstances their capabilities are restricted such as in case of contracting diseases where one’s sound mental health and judgmental capacities are challenged.The similar observation could be made for underage children who lack sufficient knowledge regarding the good and bad out of any situation. In this respect, they are mostly dependent upon their parents –biological, custodial, foster for guidance and support. The current assignment deals with the procedure of releasing information of minors to their parents under various circumstances.  

The crucial health related information is provided to the adoptive parents of a minor only under special situations and circumstances. In this context, the birth parents need to give consent for disclosure of information in writing. Thus, only under such directives can the State Department of human resources or the licensed agencies shall release the important health information of the adopted child (Strandell, 2015).

The birth parents of the adopted minors possess a number of rights as far as practicing parenthood is concerned. The birth parents of the child have been allowed by the legal bodies to make important decisions pertaining to the care and keeping of the child. However, the same should not jeopardize the safety and health concerns of the child.  However as argued by Keyes et al. (2013), in case the birth parent feel that the health and well being of the child is not being maintained properly  and crucial information related to the health of the child are hidden ; they can revoke their  parental rights.

The disclosure of important health related information of a minor to a non-custodial parent is governed by a number of set rules and regulations. A parent requesting for access to the health records of their children and not listed as next of kin can be provided with the confidential information; until and unless there is a strict mandate from a law governing body such as a court of law not to share such information (Strandell, 2015).

The foster parents often have a number of restriction or limitations in having a full access to the health records of the child being raised under their care. However, a number of information may be shared with the foster parents, which would help them in developing a proper care plan for the child. Some of these are the legal status of the child, current mental and physical condition of the child along with reporting incidents of substance abuse and child mental and physical abuse (Smith, 2016).

An emancipated minor is one who has been freed from the control of their parents or guardians. In such cases they act as personal representatives and can take important decisions pertaining to their own health. As commented by Keyes et al. (2013), in the lack of a reporting adult a child who has been released from the custody of any head or guardian should be undergone proper medical checkup to ensure the health details provided by them are correct.

References

Keyes, M. A., Malone, S. M., Sharma, A., Iacono, W. G., & McGue, M. (2013). Risk of suicide attempt in adopted and nonadopted offspring. Pediatrics, 132(4), 639-646.

Smith, D. M. (2016). From Orphans to Families in Crisis: Parental Rights Matters in Maine Probate Courts. Me. L. Rev., 68, 45.

Strandell, B. (2015). Medical Privacy in Dependency Cases: An Exploration of Medical Information Sharing in the Foster Care System. J. Health & Biomedical L., 11, 107.