Question

This questions is regarding Future Opportunities and Challenges Regarding Ethics in Health Information Systems

Name at least one opportunity and one challenge regarding ethics in Health Information Systems.

Please write 200 words.

Answer 1

Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) was passed in 1996. It established several privacy rules and regulations for health care profession about the patient confidentially. Maintaining the patient privacy is one of the most important challenge regarding Ethics in Health Information Systems.

Changing from the traditional medical record system to the electronic medical record system is one of the changes commonly made in all the healthcare organizations recently. However, patient privacy is an important issue with the usage of EHR.

One important advantage of EHR is it is the readily available information for anyone who needs it, plays a key role in providing better patient care and safety. The disadvantage is it can be safely operated only by people who have minimum technical skills, may be a problem for illiterate people. As EHR includes all the patient information and is available to both patient and medical staff, the patient can know about his health condition by thoroughly following their reports.

Patient’s concerns about confidentiality or privacy is one of the primary disadvantages of EMR (electronic medical record). Patients are hesitant to accept EMR system because they think that there will be no control over viewing their health records. But the EMRs are only acceptable with specific passwords and user identification (ID).

All employees in a medical facility should not access the patient’s information just because the individual is a patient at the clinic. No one should access the data that is not required for providing patient care. Unnecessary access of healthcare data results in breaching the rule of confidentiality and also leads to patient discrimination.