Ethics , Privacy & Security

encompasses issues of proper and improper behaviour, honourable actions, and of right and wrong.

in medicine, nursing, human subject research, psychology, and other related fields continue to become more twisted and complex, but some overarching issues are common among them.

on the other hand, are less familiar, even if some of them have been controversial for decades.

also raises questions about various legal and regulatory requirements.

should be used in clinical practice only after appropriate evaluation of its efficacy and the documentation that it performs its intended task at an acceptable cost in time and money.

should be preceded by adequate training and instruction, which should include review of applicable product evaluations.

Users of most clinical systems should be

is defined as either allowing individuals to make their own decisions in response to a particular societal context, or as the idea that no one human person does not have the authority nor should have power over another human person.

must maintain respect for patient autonomy, and this entails certain restrictions about the access, content, and ownership of records.

These two principles are respectively defined as “do good” and “do no harm.” In health informatics, beneficence relates most significantly with the use of the stored data in the EHR system, and non -maleficence with data protection.

will contain substantial amounts of raw data, and great potential exists for the conduction of groundbreaking biomedical and public health research. These kinds of research will be beneficial to both the individual patient, and to the entirety of society.

should be developed with the capacity to allow patients to release information from their EHRs which can be valuable to researchers and scientists.

on the other hand, involves the ethical behaviour required of anyone handling data and information, as prescribed by the International Medical Informatics Association (2016). It covers seven principles: privacy, openness, security, access, legitimate infringement, least intrusive alternatives, and accountability.

All persons and group of persons have a fundamental right to privacy, and hence to control over the collection, storage, access, use, communication, manipulation, linkage and disposition of data about themselves.

The collection, storage, access, use, communication, manipulation, linkage and disposition of personal data must be disclosed in an appropriate and timely fashion to the subject or subjects of those data.

Data that have been legitimately collected about persons or groups of persons should be protected by all reasonable and appropriate measures against loss degradation, unauthorized destruction, access, use, manipulation, linkage, modification or communication.

The subjects of electronic health records have the right of access to those records and the right to correct them with respect to its accurateness, completeness and relevance.

The fundamental right of privacy and of control over the collection, storage, access, use, manipulation, linkage, communication and disposition of personal data is conditioned only by the legitimate, appropriate and relevant data-needs of a free, responsible and democratic society, and by the equal and competing rights of others.

Any infringement of the privacy rights of a person or group of persons, and of their right of control over data about them, may only occur in the least intrusive fashion and with a minimum of interference with the rights of the affected parties.

Any infringement of the privacy rights of a person or group of persons, and of the right to control over data about them, must be justified to the latter in good time and in an appropriate fashion.

heavily relies on use of software to store and process information. As a result, activities carried out by software developers might significantly affect end-users.

has ethical duties and responsibilities to the following stakeholders: society, institution and employees, and the profession.

generally applies to individuals and their aversion to eavesdropping, whereas confidentiality is more closely related to unintended disclosure of information.

also benefits public health. When people are not afraid to disclose personal information, they are more inclined to seek out professional assistance, and it will diminish the risk of increasing untreated illnesses and spreading infectious diseases (Goodman, 2016).