Final+Exam+Social+and+Ethical+Issues

Equality of access Not everyone will have the same education to use the IT Lack of access to hospital with better care. Varying in use of IT in healthcare varies greatly.


 * The internet is making inroads into Africa: whereas three years ago only 12 countries in Africa had internet access, it is now available, at least in the capital city, in 53 out of 54 African countries.[3] Free online resources include journals,[4] research databases, and training courses.[5] [] 1272434374
 * Not all doctors and nurses are familiar with using EMR technology. Find it frustrating and may turn their attention away from the patient at times.
 * The systems seem to give short shrift to improving patient care; they focus on administrative tasks such as making savvier use of complex billing codes for insurance reimbursement. [] 1272434374

Privacy - Example: When a celebirty or a politician is seen at a hospital, nosy doctors and nurses login into the EMR to see what happened to them. Chance this information may be sold to magazines or tabloids who will exploit the information. []1272434418

Reliability of information

- Some doctors also complain about errors. Dr. Fernandopulle recently tried to use his electronic records system to check how many of his heart-failure patients are on a class of drugs called ace inhibitors. But several patients who he knew were taking an ace inhibitor didn't show up on the list generated by the system. It turned out that a popular pill that combines an ace inhibitor with another type of medicine wasn't recognized by the system as an ace inhibitor. So he and his staff had to go through each patient's chart to check medications. [] 1272434374

- a single server, no backups. If the server fails, all the information is lost. - If something happens to the room in which the info is stored, everything is lost

A single server is used by the company and so if the server fails, crashes or some issues occur, the server can lose all of its information. This is also the case with the room because of the way the info is stored, it is all stored in one location, nor is there back-up power in any case of a power surge. Because of this information can easily be lost. Constant back-ups must be consistently made.

- Because the phone network has just been implemented, there is the possibility for reliability issues such as bad reception, which may lead to issues of communication at vital times. As the phone network has recently been implemented, the service is not yet consistent and 100% reliable. There are issues that can come up, such as certain areas with no reception. This can cause multiple problems especially at vital times because of communication issues

- Reliability issues due to different OS on the computers Because of the different OS’ run throughout the computers within the company, the software used throughout the system can possibly be conflicting or unable to be read on certain computers. Reading certain files, such as how macs can’t read powerpoints etc. can cause reliability issues.

Policies and standards

- lower standards because of the location. n Due to the remote location of the clinic and the new cell phone signal, it would mean that the service was just able to reach that area that means that it would still be somewhat weak. Hence when calling from that area it would be possible that the connection might be cut and/or they would have very poor reception and possibly have static during the conversation. [] an article explaining how wireless mobile and internet connections are being improved in africa. 1271816531 [] how the internet access is being improved in africa. 1271816531 Lack of internet access, can cause communication issues, cannot look up information when confronted with a problem. n Without internet access, the doctor in the clinic would not be able to look up the symptoms of a new sickness that he/she has not encountered before or not in their knowledge. This might be a serious disadvantage as they would have to transport the patient to the main hospital or have a long conversation with a doctor in the hospital over the phone. (which has poor reception).
 * [] an article on how the internet access is being improved in Africa
 * Compatibility issues, donated computers run older OS

n The donated computers have an older version of Microsoft office, this would mean that it would save the document files in a different version of Microsoft office which is incompatible with the new version. Without a file converter this could lead to severe problems as they would be unable to open files sent to them from the old computers, or use files transferred from the new computers on the old donated computers.1271816531

Several years ago an issue was brought up where in one medical staff have to take care of over 50 patients daily. A lot of doctors and nurses complain that this work is "Brain Drain" and for very low payment. The medical staff demanded higher pay for their services or they will move out of the country for better jobs. They had no choice but to comply to the demand of the medical staff. The hospitals are facing very heavy human resources problems because of this, they seek to hire more nurses from other East African countries for a cheaper pay price. Do you think the medical staff using the need of medical treatment to their advantage in such a situation ethically appropriate? [] 1272505478