Ethical Concerns with Interoperable Electronic Health Records

Running Head: ETHICAL CONCERNS WITH INTEROPERABLE ELECTRONIC HEALTH RECORDS (IEHR) 1
Ethical Concerns with interoperable Electronic Health Records (iEHR)
By: Haida Mahmoud
CD-ED HIM 209
Instructor: Ms. Sandra Cotton
March 2019

ETHICAL CONCERNS WITH INTEROPERABLE ELECTRONIC HEALTH RECORDS (IEHR) 2
Table of Contents
INTRODUCTION...........................................................................................................................3
BACKGROUND.............................................................................................................................3
METHODOLOGY..........................................................................................................................5
Key terms and definitions:...........................................................................................................6
LIMITATIONS................................................................................................................................8
FINDINGS.......................................................................................................................................8
Ethical Concerns in iEHRs..........................................................................................................8
Potential Solutions to the Ethical concerns in iEHR..................................................................11
CONCLUSION..............................................................................................................................11
REFERENCES..............................................................................................................................13
BIBLIOGRAPHY..........................................................................................................................13
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ETHICAL CONCERNS WITH INTEROPERABLE ELECTRONIC HEALTH RECORDS (IEHR) 3
Ethical Concerns with Interoperable Electronic Health Records
INTRODUCTION
Electronic Health Record is a record that contains the medical records of different patients
from different sources in a digital format. The records contain information such the physical
examinations, diagnosis, and treatment. Hospitals have started implementing EHR because of its
advantages. Some of its advantages include improved care quality, reduced costs of maintaining
paper-based systems, and improved access to health care information An EHR is challenged
ethically when patient details concerning their health are revealed without their consent. Patient
awareness of this issue may make them conceal some of their sensitive information which leads
to a compromised treatment. Therefore, Policymakers and other health personnel must come up
with policies which regulate access to electronic health care records.
BACKGROUND
To be able to ethically utilize the maximum potential benefits of interoperable Electronic
Health Records (iEHR), and to protect its privacy and confidentiality, the user should know what
the record contains, how the contents are collected and by whom, and how are they electronically
retrieved and transferred.
Health Records (HR) are quite significantly different from Medical Records (MR), just as the
word medical is different from the word health. Yet, they can be misused interchangeably. The
major difference is that MR is created, maintained, stored and destroyed by physicians in their
office. They contain information about the patient’s treatments and interventions in that office,
consultation notes, or test results requested by that clinician. MR can be accessed only by the
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ETHICAL CONCERNS WITH INTEROPERABLE ELECTRONIC HEALTH RECORDS (IEHR) 4
physician who is directly involved in the care of this patient. The physician identifies who if
anyone can view the information, including the patient about whom the information is collected.
True iEHRs are more comprehensive and broader; they are more about the total health of this
patient. They contain information from all clinicians, not just physicians, which are involved in
the care of this patient at any point in time. They are not just used by the facility that collected
the data, they are used by more than one healthcare organization. In addition to physicians, other
organizations that could collect and share health information are labs, specialists, nursing homes,
medical imaging facilities, emergency departments, pharmacies, or even schools. Therefore, the
iEHR gives a complete picture of the patient’s health history over time. This detail culled from
many sources helps the authorized care provider to give the most suitable health care when and
where it is needed.
iEHRs can tremendously improve the care of the patient by minimizing medical errors. The
iEHR is comprehensive and contains all the data related to the patient’s previous interventions,
current diagnosis, medication history, and possible allergies. With the clinicians’ ability to access
the iEHR, they can identify potential conflicts or contraindications of any treatment, or even
prevent adverse drug reaction. An iEHR increases the speed of providing necessary care, due to
the quick access to the patient’s record. There is no need to wait for information from other
sources or to wade through volumes of data, as it is significantly faster to transfer and retrieve
data through the iEHR than paper charts. The necessary information is available immediately,
and therefore the clinician can make decisions on care with speed.
Another benefit of the iEHR is cost efficiency. iEHR will eliminate the need for any record
storage freeing up the storage spaces which were initially used under the paper system. Also,
there will be no need for a person to manage thousands of files previously used in the paper
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