Towards a definition of health informatics ethics

Information technology is a prominent tool in healthcare management. However, healthcare systems often fall short of addressing concerns about privacy, confidentiality and safety of information. Even though there is existing literature on ethical issues in medicine, as well as ethics in computing, information technology in medicine leads to new ethical issues that are not covered by medical or computing ethics. We define the term `health informatics ethics' to encompass ethical issues resulting from the use of technology in managing healthcare information. We also investigate the application of our proposed definition to not only resolving ethical conflicts, but also preventing conflicts. Categories and Subject Descriptors K.7.4 [The Computing Profession]: Professional ethics-codes of ethics; K.4.1 [Computers and Society]: Public Policy Issues--ethics General Terms Theory Keywords ethics, health informatics

• Type: Journal
• Year: 2010
• Where: IHI
• Authors: Hamman W. Samuel, Osmar R. Zaïane, Dick Sobsey
• Keywords: Ethical Issues, Ethics, Healthcare, IHI 2010, Information Technology