Professional ethics for system developers in health care

Medical informaticians are multidisciplinary professionals responsible for developing complex technical systems. The aim of this study was to investigate how a code of ethics can help medical informaticians in avoiding design failures. An exploratory case study was performed to identify factors related to failure during system development. The literature on professional ethics was reviewed to derive a preliminary code of ethics. The case study showed that collaboration across individual and professional values is required to avoid failure during system development in health care. Having either the employer or the health care providers in focus for moral judgments may be misleading and cause confusion. The preliminary code emphasizes socialization, education and cooperation rather than enforced compliance. As a code is a distillation of experiences, its major benefit to medical informaticians should be its clarification of the profession's position in society.