Critical Issues of Information Technology in Healthcare

Social and Ethical Issues of Information Technology

Introduction

In the recent years, information technology has been a subject of debate in the healthcare sector. The introduction of systems such as Electronic Health Recording (EHR) has brought about several issues, most of them concerning ethical and social implications. This paper seeks to analyze some of the critical elements of information technology in healthcare.

Critical Issues

Developments that had been made on information technology are a reflection of how the health care system has changed. The first critical issue in nursing is accountability. Currently, most health institutions host various technologies, medical expertise, and monitoring and fiscal accounting systems (Cherry 12). The second factor presented by information technology is on their ethical constraints. Without precise rules and regulations, nurses risk falling victim to misconduct and erroneous violations (Sankar et al. 743).

Ethics

Ethics in relation to information technology in healthcare is mainly related to the principles of privacy. A nurse is ethically responsible for the patients' right to autonomy and decision making in regards to the management of their health information. Practitioners also ought to adhere to the concepts of equity and fairness in the service provision. All these are the key areas whereby ethics informs nursing ethical conduct (Tavani 6).

Organizations need to take into account the ethical factors and provide guidelines for IT realization. The major advantage is that execution of the systems will be seamless as responsibilities will be defined, while the only disadvantage is that it may call for organizations to out-source for experts to help in the implementation process, which will require additional costs.

Conclusion

Although nurses and other medical officers play a vital role in the implementation of information technology in healthcare, managers of the organizations also have a part. The success of the IT systems depends on their design, development, configuration, and implementation.

Works Cited

Cherry, Barbara, and Susan R. Jacob. “Contemporary Nursing: Issues, Trends, & Management”. Elsevier Health Sciences 15.3, 2016, p. 12

Sankar, Pamela L., and Lisa S. Parker. "The Precision Medicine Initiative's All of Us Research Program: An Agenda for Research on its Ethical, Legal, and Social issues." Genetics in Medicine 19.7, 2017, p. 743.

Tavani, Herman T. Ethics and Technology: Ethical Issues in an Age of Information and Communication Technology. New York: Wiley, 2004