Sue T. is the nurse manager for medical-surgical units at a community hospital. She is currently enrolled in a nursing master’s degree program at the local university. As part of the requirements for a Nursing Management course, Sue proposes to conduct a study linking nursing interventions and nursing outcomes. She returns to her place of employment at night for two weeks to audit patient charts and collect the data she needs for her assignment. She makes copies of the patient records that are particularly helpful and takes them home to write the final paper.
As Sue is developing her paper, she realizes that the information she has collected may be helpful in completing her nursing staff performance evaluations due next month. She decides to collect further patient outcome data for individual nurses to monitor their performance.
Consider the following
- Has Sue violated ethical principles by collecting data for a college assignment? Why or Why not?
- Has Sue violated ethical principles by collecting patient data for employee performance evaluations? Why or Why not?
- What, if anything, should Sue have done differently in completing her college assignment?
- What, if anything, should Sue have done differently in completing her employee performance evaluations?