Ethical Issues in Health Informatics

• Health Care informatics


  Issues of appropriate and inappropriate behavior
• Ethics


  Moral philosophy or code of morals
• Morality


  Standard of society
• Principle of autonomy


  Self determination
• Principle of equality and justice


  Equal as person
• Principle of beneficence


  Advance the good of others
• Principle of non-maleficence


  Prevent harm to others
• Principle of impossibility


  Possible to meet them under circumstances
• Principle of integrity


  Duty to fulfill the obligations
• Confidentiality


  Obligation of professional; hold that information in confidence; privilege communication; applied to information
• Privacy


  Right of individual client to be let alone; applied to people
• Privacy and confidentiality


  Right of all people; benefits both individual and society
• Data security


  Used to protect the privacy of health information
• Liability


  Legal precedents directly involving harm
• Product liability


  Harm caused by defective product
• Before clinicians perform most health related intervention, they generally evaluate


  • Evidence
  • Standard
  • Available technology
  • Presupposition
  • Values
• Standard view


  Decision-support tools should be viewed and used as supplementary to human clinical judgement
• Potential users of such systems


  • Physician
  • Nurses
  • Paramedical personnel
  • Patients
  • Students of health sciences
• Two competing values


  • Free access to information
  • Protection of patient's privacy and confidentiality
• Ethical considerations


  Determine what is good and meritorious
• Legal principles


  Derived from ethical ones
• Ethics


  Offers conceptual tools
• Laws


  Tells us how to behave
• Tort


  Acts of commission that gives rise to injury
• Injury


  Invasion of any legal right
• Harm


  Fact that an individual suffers
• REPUBLIC ACT NO. 386 (Civil Code of the Philippines): ordain and institute civil code
• ACT 2176: general principle of civil liability
• Three ideas from tort law


  • Harm by intention: person injures another using a product
  • Negligence theory
  • Strict product liability
• REPUBLIC ACT NO. 10173 (DATA PRIVACY ACT OF 2012): protecting individual personal information; individuals health are considered sensitive personal information
• JOINT ADMINISTRATIVE 2016-0002: ensure protection of the privacy of patient
• REPUBLIC ACT NO. 8293 (Intellectual Property Code of the Philippines): prescribing the intellectual property code
• Intellectual property protection


  Underdeveloped area of law
• Copyright law


  Intellectual property
• Patents


  Specific methods of implementing