Expert systems, security and quality assurance: implications of patient records as data-space

The concept of data-space is fruitful in trying to understand the ethical rights and duties that surround the treatment of patient records. However, it also provides a solution to three apparently unconnected problems: the construction of expert diagnostic systems, the development of an internal security element within the sphere of permitted data-access for health care professionals, and the development of a professional quality assurance mechanism. This paper presents a model of how these diverse aims may be achieved. It does so by developing the notion of the logical form of data within a data-space and by showing how the path taken by a health care professional through a profession-relative data-space can provide checks for the security, quality and appropriateness of the path itself. The result is important in that it provides an integrated method for information specialists to meet their fiduciary obligations towards the patients whose records are in their care, and towards the institutions that employ them.