Health Informatics Issues - Essay Example

It regards the “storage, access, use, communication, manipulation and disposition” of patients’ information (p. 4). This scope of medical informatics ethics corresponds to general ethical principles of autonomy, non-malfeasance, and beneficence. Autonomy requires respect for a person’s authority over privacy issues and is identifiable from the need that information should be confidential unless a patient authorizes a specified disclosure. Ensuring the privacy of information in the medical environment also protects patients from psychological harm that would be suffered from disclosure. This scope further corresponds to the doctrine of non-malfeasance (International Medical Informatics Association, 2011; Mackenzie and Carter, 2010).

The IMIA code of ethics identifies moral and legal liabilities to a medical organization. The ethical principles of autonomy, beneficence and non-malfeasance induce moral liabilities to institutions when such institutions fail to protect private information and unauthorized access leads to harm to the involved patients. Unauthorized disclosure of information also identifies a breach of privacy and leads to an institution’s legal liability to the individuals whose private information is illegally disclosed (International Medical Informatics Association, 2011).

An organization can however ensure “information privacy and disposition” through restricting information access to specific personnel to whom such information is necessary (International Medical Informatics Association, 2011, p. 4). Other strategies to ensure ethics include informing relevant personnel of their duty to ensure privacy and committing the personnel to non-disclosure agreements. Read More

 

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