Ethics: Does knowledge of a patient's blood borne pathogen change your care?

Nurses General Nursing

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I'm sure we have all had patients with various blood borne pathogens... HIV, AIDS, Hep B, etc.

If the patient is under your care for an unrelated issue, do you find that they may generally be treated any differently? Do you aware the CNA/PCA who also may be working with the patient?

Just looking for different view points from a bed-side nursing perspective.

Thanks

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Specializes in Trauma, Orthopedics.

No, I don't treat them any different. Why would I? A little more caution when doing things that may involve blood, yes, but that's about it. And yes, I alert my CNAs when I give them report.

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Specializes in L&D.

There are so many blood borne illnesses floating around that I treat everyone as is they have HIV/AIDS, Hep C, etc. No reason to treat them differently, though. I have never witnessed a nurse or health care professional treat a client "differently" because of their status.

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I've never seen a patient be treated differently. We use the same precautions regardless, because you can never be positive that a patient doesn't have HIV or Hep C or anything else.

I would think that anybody who has worked in health care longer than a week is pretty used to it.

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Nope.

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Agree with the above in treating everyone as if they have a blood borne pathogen. Universal precautions!

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I am a CNA and for me I do not treat them any differently. A) There are plenty of people walking around not knowing they are HIV+ anyways. B) There is so much more easily transmittable stuff on my unit then blood borne pathogens anyways, MRSA, CDIFF,VRE, that I am just super careful all the time anyways. And yes most of my nurses will tell me if a patient is HIV/HEPB/C+ .

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No, I don't treat them any different. Why would I? A little more caution when doing things that may involve blood, yes, but that's about it. And yes, I alert my CNAs when I give them report.

You don't think that there is an inherent bias created when disclosing PHI that isn't relevant? Given universal precautions, why should it matter?

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Specializes in SICU, trauma, neuro.

No and no. Pt's status isn't need-to-know for the CNAs' care. I mean, the CNAs aren't doing anything that would but themselves at risk.

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No and no. Pt's status isn't need-to-know for the CNAs' care. I mean, the CNAs aren't doing anything that would but themselves at risk.

CNAs at your location don't do 1:1 protocol sits with violet/suicidal/confused patients? What about cleaning up blood on the floor from a patient who just yanked their IV out?

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CNAs at your location don't do 1:1 protocol sits with violet/suicidal/confused patients? What about cleaning up blood on the flow from a patient who just yanked their IV out?

PPE. Everyone gloves up and we assume all blood is HIV pos. What are you getting at?

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PPE. Everyone gloves up and we assume all blood is HIV pos. What are you getting at?

Well, look at a majority of the other posts here. The point I am trying to make is that if universal precautions were taken, there is no need to disclose the PHI... Least of all to PCAs/CNAs. There is no way around the bias and it introduces a very real possibility for discrimination whether intentional or non-intentional.

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