Ethical Informatic Issues In Health Care

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Ethical informatics issues arise in all industries involving technology, and healthcare is not an exception. The informatics world in healthcare is complex and complicated because of the number of systems required interact with each other to store and retrieve data, and efficiently deliver accurate information to the healthcare provider. In return, the healthcare provider uses that information to make clinical care decisions in the best interest of the patients. However, this is where one of the main informatic issues in healthcare arises: access to health medical records. I chose this informatics topic because my goal in the future is to become an EHR application analyst. Therefore, it will be beneficial for me to get a deeper understanding …show more content…

For Autonomy, the hospital/facility should inform the patients of their rights and privacy practices. The facility must respect the patients’ autonomy by giving them the access accordingly to their medical records, and maintain confidentiality of the records unless the patients permit the access. This will help to foster trust and improve communication. By informing the patients of their rights, the hospitals can avoid potential lawsuits about privacy practices. In addition, now that the patient is able to gain access to their health record, they can review their information and provide feedback to health providers. This will enhance their treatment because with the feedback from the patient, the health provider now has more of an accurate information to design an appropriate treatment plan. All parties involved - physicians, patients, and hospitals - will benefits from simple actions of informing the patients of their rights and privacy practices and giving access to medical records …show more content…

Enhance network security of the EHR system will reduce the risk of cyber-attacks. Encrypt data when sending and receiving data from external systems will ensure that the patients’ medical records only be available to the right parties. In addition to security implementation, the facility should also provide training classes or information sessions to the employees to inform them about the importance of patients’ medical records, the business process for accessing and retrieving the records, the pros versus cons of medical records leakage, and the potential consequences. Structured business processes will prevent human errors on exposing medical records. Knowledge from the information sessions or trainings will reduce the risk of any potential internal theft on data now that the employees know the pros and cons of their actions. With these actions, the hospitals will benefit from the reduced risks of cyber-attacks, thefts, or mistakes on exposing medical records. The patients will have peace of mind knowing that their personal and important information are

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