Ethics and Information Technology

This book presents 130 case studies illustrating ethical and social issues that arise from the increasing use of computers in medicine, nursing, psychology, pharmacy, and the allied health professions. The rapid development of health informatics offers a rich array of issues and challenges to academics, clinicians, and system developers. These issues involve threats to privacy and confidentiality, misuse of clinical and genetic information, risks to patients of bias and discrimination, erosion of the practitioner-patient relationship, threats to the autonomy of the health professional, and compromises to the quality of care provided. The use of case studies is well known in medicine, nursing, public health, epidemiology, and other health education programs. This book presents selected cases with annotation and commentaries that illustrate ethical concerns and social problems in the use of computers in medicine.This book will present 130 case studies illustrating ethical and social issues that arise from the increasing use of computers in medicine, nursing, psychology, pharmancy, and the allied health professions. The rapid development of health informatics offers a rich array of issues and challenges to academics, clinicians, and system developers. These issues involve threats to privacy and confidentiality, misuse of clinical and genetic information, risks to patients of bias and discrimination, erosion of the practitioner-patient relationship, threats to the autonomy of health professional, and compromises to the quality of care provided. The use of case studies is well known in medicine, nursing, public health, epidemiology, and other health education programs. This book presents selected cases with annotation and commentaries that illustrate ethical concerns and social problems in the use of computers in medicine. Such materials would be used as part of case-based methods of instruction in health professional training and continuing professional education programs. The discussions will be designed to illustrate how thoughtful individuals identify issues and approach such problems. The discussions will also highlight the perspectives of different academic and professional disciplines. Topics included in the four Appendices address ethical standards for Web sites; health Internet ethics and the principles for offering Internet health services to consumers; the quality assessment of Internet health information; and the principles governing AMA publications Web sites.