What is veracity in health care?

Veracity means being truthful, and specific to health care, it means being truthful with patients. As with confidentiality, veracity helps to create trust between a health care professional and a patient. If patients feel health care professionals are being open and honest, they are more likely to be open and honest in return. The opposite is also true. If patients feel health care professionals are not being truthful, they are more likely to withhold information that might be important for determining the course of treatment.

The principle of veracity has not always been a high priority among health care professionals. But with modern-day medical ethics, veracity is held in very high regard and is seen as vital to helping patients preserve their right to autonomy.

At times, it can be hard to be truthful with patients, especially when the health care professional has difficult news to share. In such instances, it is important for health care professionals to remember that there is little evidence to suggest that difficult news has a serious negative impact on patients and that there is a way to handle the delivery of such news in a thoughtful and sensitive way that helps to lessen the impact of the news on patients.

Veracity is also important when admitting mistakes. As in every other aspect of life, sometimes errors occur in health care. To help preserve the trust relationship that exists between a patient and a health care professional, it is vital that the professional not withhold information from a patient when a mistake is made. Even minor errors should be disclosed rather than covered up. Oftentimes, attempting to cover up a mistake does more harm to the relationship with the patient than would have been done had the professional simply admitted the mistake in the first place.