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Informatics Ethics
Definition/Introduction
Ethics are inherent in the practice of medicine. In modern healthcare, informatics plays a pivotal role in maintaining and delivering care.[1] As such, informatics ethics has come into the spotlight over recent years. Like other codes of ethics, informatics offers insight into the recommended ethical guidance of clinicians and other healthcare professionals. Additionally, the informatics code of ethics functions as a gold standard against which the actions of professionals can be compared. Furthermore, the code of informatics ethics offers patients and the general population an established statement of standards that may mold professionals’ actions and behaviors.
Informatics ethics significantly overlap with other codes of ethics developed around social settings. These fundamental principles include:
- Autonomy
- Equality
- Justice
- Beneficence
- Nonmaleficence
- Integrity
Other principles that play essential roles in healthcare include:
- Information privacy
- Security
- Access
- Openness
- Least intrusive alternative
- Legitimate infringement
- Accountability [2]
These ethical principles provide insight into the duties and responsibilities of clinicians, administrators, and other healthcare personnel when dealing with patient-related content. It is worth emphasizing that these principles provide guidance depending on the nature, context, and specific details of individual situations.[3]
Issues of Concern
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Issues of Concern
There are several concerns regarding informatics, its regulations, and ethics:
- Efficiency versus quality care: When viewing decision-making across all layers of healthcare delivery, from initial in-person encounters to data storage and transfer, it is imperative to consider the reason behind each decision
- Patient access to care and data: This has several layers of regulation at the federal, state, and organizational levels.[3]
- End-of-life considerations: With the population trending toward living longer, how might data and information be utilized, handled, protected, or destroyed?
- Often, individuals at end-of-life cannot appreciate the complexity of how their data is treated within the broader healthcare environment and cannot decide how that information should or should not be utilized.[4]
Clinical Significance
Overall, informatics plays a significant role in modern healthcare. The budding field of informatics ethics highlights views that mandate both flexibility and development and recognition of standards for addressing these issues as the field continues to evolve.[5] Data collection, maintenance, usage, and destruction in electronic healthcare records remain a focal point of interest in the ongoing societal debate and regulation.
References
Lipworth W, Mason PH, Kerridge I. Ethics and Epistemology of Big Data. Journal of bioethical inquiry. 2017 Dec:14(4):485-488. doi: 10.1007/s11673-017-9815-8. Epub 2017 Nov 8 [PubMed PMID: 29119459]
Liyanage H, Liaw ST, Di Iorio CT, Kuziemsky C, Schreiber R, Terry AL, de Lusignan S. Building a Privacy, Ethics, and Data Access Framework for Real World Computerised Medical Record System Data: A Delphi Study. Contribution of the Primary Health Care Informatics Working Group. Yearbook of medical informatics. 2016 Nov 10:(1):138-145 [PubMed PMID: 27830242]
Layman E. Health informatics: ethical issues. The health care manager. 2003 Jan-Mar:22(1):2-15 [PubMed PMID: 12688606]
Goodman KW. Addressing ethical issues in health information technology. Cambridge quarterly of healthcare ethics : CQ : the international journal of healthcare ethics committees. 2015 Jul:24(3):252-4. doi: 10.1017/S0963180114000577. Epub [PubMed PMID: 26059951]
Huser V, Cimino JJ. Impending Challenges for the Use of Big Data. International journal of radiation oncology, biology, physics. 2016 Jul 1:95(3):890-894. doi: 10.1016/j.ijrobp.2015.10.060. Epub 2015 Nov 5 [PubMed PMID: 26797535]