FINALS: ETHICS, PRIVACY AND SECURITY

modernization

in healthcare has led to the tendency of most practitioners to rely on the use of mechanical aids throughout the process of providing patient treatment.

healthcare informatics

encompasses issues of proper and improper behaviour, honourable actions, and of right and wrong.

ethical questions

in medicine, nursing, human subject research, psychology, and other related fields continue to become more twisted and complex, but some overarching issues are common among them.

ethical issues

in health informatics, on the other hand, are less familiar, even if some of them have been controversial for decades.

informatics

raises questions about various legal and regulatory requirements.

computer program

should be used in clinical practice only after appropriate evaluation of its efficacy and the documentation that it performs its intended task at an acceptable cost in time and money.

autonomy

is defined as either allowing individuals to make their own decisions in response to a particular societal context, or as the idea that no one human person does not have the authority nor should have power over another human person.

electronic health records

must maintain respect for patient autonomy, and this entails certain restrictions about the access, content, and ownership of records.

beneficence and non-maleficence

These two principles are respectively defined as “do good” and “do no harm.”

beneficence

relates most significantly with the use of the stored data in the EHR system, and non-maleficence with data protection.

informatics ethics

involves the ethical behaviour required of anyone handling data and information, as prescribed by the International Medical Informatics Association (2016).

informatics ethics

It covers seven principles: privacy, openness, security, access, legitimate infringement, least intrusive alternatives, and accountability.

principle of information privacy and disposition

All persons and group of persons have a fundamental right to privacy, and hence to control over the collection, storage, access, use, communication, manipulation, linkage and disposition of data about themselves.

principle of openness

The collection, storage, access, use, communication, manipulation, linkage and disposition of personal data must be disclosed in an appropriate and timely fashion to the subject or subjects of those data.

principle of security

Data that have been legitimately collected about persons or groups of persons should be protected by all reasonable and appropriate measures against loss degradation, unauthorized destruction, access, use, manipulation, linkage,

modification or communication.

principle of access

The subjects of electronic health records have the right of access to those records and the right to correct them with respect to its accurateness, completeness and relevance.

principle of legitimate infringement

The fundamental right of privacy and of control over the collection, storage, access, use, manipulation, linkage, communication and disposition of personal data is conditioned only by the legitimate, appropriate and relevant data-needs of a free, responsible and democratic society, and by the equal and competing rights of others.

principle of the least intrusive alternative

Any infringement of the privacy rights of a person or group of persons, and of their right of control over data about them, may only occur in the least intrusive fashion and with a minimum of interference with the rights of the affected parties.

principle of accountability

Any infringement of the privacy rights of a person or group of persons, and of the right to control over data about them, must be justified to the latter in good time and in an appropriate fashion.

software ethics

Health informatics ethics heavily relies on use of software to store and process information. As a result, activities carried out by software developers might significantly affect end-users.

privacy

generally applies to individuals and their aversion to eavesdropping

confidentiality

is more closely related to unintended disclosure of information.

technological security tools are essential components of modern distributed health care information systems, and that they serve five key functions: which are?

availability, accountability, perimeter identification, controlling access, comprehensibility and control

availability

ensuring that accurate and up-to-date information is available when needed at appropriate places

accountability

helping to ensure that health care providers are responsible for their access to and use of information, based on a legitimate need and right to know

perimeter identification

knowing and controlling the boundaries of trusted access to the information system, both physically and logically

controlling access

enabling access for health care providers only to information essential to the performance of their jobs and limiting the real or perceived temptation to access information beyond a legitimate need

comprehensibility and control

ensuring that record owners, data stewards, and patients understand and have effective control over appropriate aspects of information privacy and access.

consent

is one of the major elements highly-valued by the Data Privacy Act.