Problem
The ethical dilemma relates to the nonprofit healthcare facility serving patients with substance abuse problems. The facility is famous for being non-judgmental and providing high-quality services to patients from low-income households. Significant amounts of data are collected for better service delivery. Before the data is collected, the patients sign a disclosure that permits sharing of the information in anonymously both externally and internally. A pharmaceutical company wants access to the client’s data, as it desires to develop better medication for substance abuse victims and in return compensate the non-profit facility. The ethical dilemmas include the issue of patient privacy and confidentiality, and the issue is the ethics behind a non-profit hospital selling patient’s data.
Solutions
The hospital has only two solutions in this regard including agreeing to the pharmaceutical company’s terms or denying them assess. The hospital may deny them access citing respecting the patient’s privacy, and it would be improper to release the information. The information belongs to the patient, and the patient has the right to control the release of the content (Woods, 2014). Therefore, healthcare providers should release the material only to authorized individuals. While obvious identifiers may be omitted, in the current digital space it is easier to gain clues into the owner of the particular information. The hospital may look at the bigger picture and give the pharmaceutical company access to the patient’s information to use it for research. Ideally, the pharmaceutical company is supporting the hospital agenda, and if better treatment is administered, then their clients receive the best services (Bernholz, 2014). The option of providing access is the most viable in this regard since it serves the common good. Furthermore, the patients signed a disclosure allowing their data to be shared anonymously both externally and internally. The hospital also needs the funds to serve the low-income substance abuse victims better, and the compensation will be of significant help. Most importantly, the nonprofit facility should efficiently communicate with the patient and be open with what they do with the data collected (Bernholz, 2014).
Delegate your assignment to our experts and they will do the rest.
Concepts
Researchers in pharmaceutical companies need access to information to help them in the development of better treatment. Health researchers collect and analyze data, and when all the datasets are pooled together, they turn out to be a valuable commodity (Woods, 2014). Companies are ready to buy information to inform their investments in the pharmaceutical industry. Moreover, the entire health care system is dependent on clients trusting them for the privacy and confidentiality of their information. Once they learn that they privacy is being breached, they may be less willing to seek help or describe their conditions to healthcare providers. In the digital era collection of data should follow the eight guidelines including accountability, individual participation, openness, security safeguards, use limitation, purpose specificity, data quality, and collection limitation principles (Woods, 2014).
Clients may be open to using their data in research as long as the data is anonymized. In such a case, the patient’s NHS number, date of birth, postcode, address, and the name is not passed on to the research team (Woods, 2014). However, the current data-mining advancements make it easier for one to link the information provided and identifies intricate details about the patients even with the anonymity aspect has been considered. Data mining in the pharmaceutical industry promises new cures and discoveries, and the miners believe that once the data is anonymized, it no longer belongs to the patient (Woods, 2014). Although there is hope that the commercial exchange of anonymized patient data enhances treatments and science, there is an increased privacy risk. Therefore, governemnts should facilitate an informed, open public debate for establishing regulations on this data in what is already a globalized and big health data problem.
References
Bernholz, L., (2014, August 4). Ethics and the Age of Digital Assumption. Philanthropy 2173 . Retrieved from https://philanthropy.blogspot.co.ke/2014/08/ethics-and-age-of-digital-assumption.html
Woods, A.K., (2014, September 15-16). Do civil Society’s Data Practices Call for New Ethical Guidelines? Stanford University . Retrieved from http://pacscenter.stanford.edu/sites/all/files/Woods.Provocation.Final_.pdf
