Institute:Office of National Coordinator (ONC) Workforce Training Curriculum
Component:The Culture of Health Care
Unit:Ethics and Professionalism
Lecture:Ethical issues in health informatics
Slide content:Duties Owed to Health Care Professionals Provide informatics services necessary for health care professionals to carry out their obligations Provide timely and secure access to relevant electronic records Ensure the usability, integrity, and highest possible technical quality of the records IMIA Code of Ethics, 2011 18
Slide notes:In many workplaces, informatics professionals work with doctors, nurses, and other health care providers who are their coworkers, not their employers. According to the Code of Ethics of the International Medical Informatics Association, health care providers have a right to depend on the technological skills of health informatics professionals to help them meet their own professional obligations to patients. Therefore, its an ethical duty for informatics professionals to assist health care providers [quote] insofar as this is compatible with the [health informatics professionals] primary duty towards the subjects of the electronic records. [end quote ] The Code lists practical examples of these obligations. They include ensuring that health care providers have timely and secure access to useable, high-quality electronic records. 18