| Course | HIM 675 Research Methods and Evaluation |
|---|---|
| Module | Module 8 |
| Paper type | graduate journal entry on the ethics of record-based research |
| Length | About 430 words, 3 pages |
| Format | APA 7 student paper |
| School | Southern New Hampshire University |
| Program | MS Health Information Management |
| Updated | October 2026 |
Free sample paper for HIM 675 Module 8
Module Eight Journal
She Never Said Yes
On the eleventh pilot record I stopped. An 84-year-old woman had come to us from a nursing home with a sacral wound that no one wrote down until her third day, and her claim says the wound was present when she arrived. Her chart told me about her daughter, her confusion at night and a fall two years ago. She never agreed to have a stranger read any of it for my study, and soon 319 other patients will be read the same way.
The Belmont Report sets out three principles for research with people: respect for persons, which includes informed consent; beneficence, which obliges researchers to keep harm small and good large; and justice, which concerns who bears research burdens and who benefits (National Commission for the Protection of Human Subjects of Biomedical and Behavioral Research, 1979). My study waives consent, which seems at first to set the first principle aside. Federal privacy guidance allows a waiver of authorization only when the privacy risk is minimal, there is no practical way to do the work with signed authorizations and identifiers are protected and destroyed (U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, n.d.). Contacting 320 former patients, some of them now dead, is not practicable, and the risk is genuinely small if identifiers are handled well. The rules are satisfied. I am less sure that satisfying the rules settles the question.
Beauchamp and Childress (2019) treat respect for autonomy as one principle to be balanced against others, not as an absolute. What tips the balance for me is that the study is aimed at people like her. If her wound was really acquired in our hospital, the flag hides a harm and the hospital's safety rate looks better than it is. If it was present on arrival, then our admission documentation failed her. Either way, the error matters to patients, and the study is how we find it. Justice points the same direction: the patients most likely to be misflagged, frail people arriving from facilities, are the ones who benefit most from accurate data.
I am adding two protections that go beyond the minimum. Abstractors will record only the fields on the tool and nothing else, however interesting the chart, and the study will publish a plain-language summary of its findings on the hospital's website so that the community whose records were used can see what came of it. I also flagged her chart to the wound team's quality review, which is outside the study and is simply the right thing to do.
References
Beauchamp, T. L., & Childress, J. F. (2019). Principles of biomedical ethics (8th ed.). Oxford University Press.
National Commission for the Protection of Human Subjects of Biomedical and Behavioral Research. (1979). The Belmont report: Ethical principles and guidelines for the protection of human subjects of research. U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. https://www.hhs.gov/ohrp/regulations-and-policy/belmont-report/index.html
U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. (n.d.). Research. Health information privacy. https://www.hhs.gov/hipaa/for-professionals/special-topics/research/index.html
What the HIM 675 Module 8 instructions ask for
In the eighth module, HIM 675 asks for a reflective journal on the ethics of the research you are planning. About a page is typical, in your own voice, with an APA 7 source or two where they sharpen your thinking. Start from a concrete moment in your planning, such as reading a record, drafting a consent form or deciding what data to collect. Name the ethical tension honestly, for instance between consent and feasibility or between privacy and finding harm. Weigh it using recognized principles and the rules that govern research with health information, and say whether meeting the rules feels like enough. Finish with specific protections or changes you will add to your study, beyond what the minimum requires.
How this HIM 675 Module 8 journal example is built
Cimarron Heights Medical Center's pilot stops at record eleven: an 84-year-old woman from a nursing home whose sacral wound went unrecorded until day three yet was flagged present on admission. The writer sets the Belmont Report's respect for persons, beneficence and justice against federal conditions for a HIPAA research waiver and finds the rules met but the question open. Beauchamp and Childress's balancing of principles, plus the fact that frail transferred patients gain most from accurate flags, tips the judgment toward proceeding. The HIM 675 journal adds two protections, abstracting only the tool's fields and publishing a plain-language summary, and refers the woman's chart to wound quality review outside the study.
Where the HIM 675 Module 8 rubric puts the points
In HIM 675, ethics journals are generally graded on a specific, honestly described moment, accurate understanding of research ethics principles and the rules for using health information, genuine weighing of competing values rather than a checklist, awareness of who bears risks and who benefits and concrete protections that go beyond compliance. Entries that stand out admit discomfort and reason through it. Graders value attention to vulnerable groups and to the community whose data are used. Protections should be specific enough to implement. A personal yet professional tone and correct APA 7 citations for ethical frameworks and federal guidance support the higher ratings. Entries that simply assert the study is ethical because a waiver exists earn less.
HIM 675 Module 8 help: the mistakes that cost points
Ethics journals in this course often lose points by reciting the Belmont principles without applying them, treating a review board approval or waiver as the end of the discussion, describing patients in identifiable detail or ending with a general promise to protect privacy. If your study involves surveys of staff, interviews, a vulnerable population or data shared with another organization, send the prompt and a short description so the reflection fits the tensions your design raises. A real moment from your planning makes the entry much stronger, as long as details are composite or de-identified. Our HIM 675 journals weigh principles against a concrete case and add protections someone could check.
Get HIM 675 Module 8 written to your instructions
Send the HIM 675 Module 8 journal prompt and a short description of your study and a moment that gave you pause. The entry will name the ethical tension, weigh it against research principles and privacy rules and add specific protections to your plan, returned within a day or two, with your first one free. The paper above is an original model document written by our desk, not a submitted student paper and not an official Southern New Hampshire University document.
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HIM 675 Module 8 questions, answered
Where can I find a free HIM 675 Module 8 Journal sample?
This page carries the whole HIM 675 Module 8 journal, which reflects on reading patients' charts for research without consent and adds two protections to the study plan.
What are the Belmont Report principles?
Respect for persons, beneficence and justice: respecting autonomy and consent, minimizing harm while maximizing benefit and distributing research burdens and benefits fairly.
Is consent required for a retrospective chart review?
Not always. A review board can approve a waiver of authorization when privacy risk is minimal, consent is impracticable and identifiers are protected.
What extra protections can a records study add?
Collecting only necessary fields, separating identifiers from data, limiting who sees records, destroying identifiers early and sharing results with the community.
How personal should an HIM 675 ethics journal be?
Personal enough to describe a real tension and your reasoning, while keeping any patient details composite or de-identified.