One of the aspects of healthcare that intersects law, professionalism, and ethics is the use of healthcare informatics. Professionals in healthcare use informatics to simplify access to medical information, streamline testing, and enhance the understanding of clinical results. However, there are laws and ethical guidelines that provide frameworks on how patients’ information contained in digital platforms is obtained and used ( Aluaş, 2016) . The use digital interfaces in healthcare information management increase the risk that the information may be utilized without compliance to with laws and ethical principles. First, healthcare professionals are required to gain clients’ consent before obtaining personal information. Failure to obtain clients’ consent may be considered a violation to their rights to autonomy. Secondly, healthcare professionals are required to observe their responsibility to promote patients’ wellbeing ( McLean, 2016) . The bioethical principle of beneficence mandates healthcare professionals to focus on clinical interventions that would produce positive outcomes.
As a healthcare professional, I would apply healthcare informatics in a manner that bolsters healthcare outcomes without violating ethical and legal guidelines of the profession. In this direction, I will always familiarize myself with ethical and legal regulations that are relevant to my work in relationship to the use of patient information. The aim of ethical guidelines and legal regulation is to raise awareness among healthcare professionals about the stakes and risks of usage of clients’ confidential information (Kadivar et al., 2017). To me, a proper understanding of ethics and laws, as they relate to healthcare informatics, will place me in a better position to translate these requirements to professional obligations. When obtaining patient’s personally identifiable information, for instance, I will always start by informing them about their rights and responsibilities. Again, I will explain to my clients the circumstances under which their personal identifiable information may be shared, such as when a court of law requires the information to facilitate litigation.
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References
Aluaş, M. (2016). Ethical and legal considerations of healthcare informatics. Applied Medical Informatics. , 38 (3-4), 91-98.
Kadivar, M., Manookian, A., Asghari, F., Niknafs, N., Okazi, A., & Zarvani, A. (2017). Ethical and legal aspects of patient's safety: a clinical case report. Journal of medical ethics and history of medicine , 10 , 15.
McLean, S. A. (Ed.). (2016). First do no harm: Law, ethics and healthcare . New York. Routledge.
