1. Describe four ethical issues that arise when storing electronic information about individuals.
The Four ethical issues that can arise when storing electronic information about individuals would be: Privacy and Confidentiality, Security Breaches, System Implementation, and Data Inaccuracies. These four ethical issues are very important because they have people’s personal information. Any hacker can steal someone’s identity if they get their hands on this electronic information.
Privacy and Confidentiality is information that a patient should be allowed to have access to if the patient gives permission for it to be released to that individual. A patient has the right to have their information about themselves only disclosed to themselves. When a Patient is unable to do so because of age, mental incapacity the decisions about information sharing should be made by the legal representative or legal guardian of the patient (Ozair, F. 2015). The main point of confidentiality is to only allow certain people to access that individual’s information. Though a lot of individuals don’t consider that if someone misuses or uses confidentiality then it can become a very serious issue.
Security Breaches alarm patients with confidential information that is seen by people who didn’t get consent or authorization to view that patient’s information. If the data has a password which protects the information but is unencrypted is not a good thing because anyone can figure out the password after enough guesses. Though if they put encryption on the system, then only the authorized users would be able to view the information. A bunch of security measures can be added to the system like antivirus software, intrusion detection software, and firewalls.
System Implementation has a lot of issues that can waste resources, upset workers, and patients don’t feel safe. If no method is pointed out to have the workflow move correctly, a lot of struggles will come up. Every co-worker should be on the same page when making a change to the systems, so they can have less failures. Continuously testing the system and doing routine maintenance cuts down on any major issues popping up.
Data Inaccuracies can be from small overlooks and taking the time to accurately input the data. The goal is to improve the patient’s safety and minimize the errors to improve the overall experience. Having inaccurate data entries is a huge liability for the job and workers. It also puts a huge risk on the patient with treatments and their condition. Working on resolving the software problem and using a user-friendly system that is accurate, will help with this situation.
References
Ozair, F. F., Jamshed, N., Sharma, A. K., & Aggarwal, P. (2015). Ethical issues in electronic health records: A general overview. Perspectives in Clinical Research, 6(2), 73. https://doi.org/10.4103/2229-3485.153997