Patients, patient records, and ethical principles

Area of Science:

• Medical Informatics
• Bioethics
• Information Ethics

Background:

• Fair information principles are commonly used for patient record ethical guidance.
• Existing principles lack theoretical grounding and procedural completeness.
• Current ethical frameworks pose potential risks to patient data.

Purpose of the Study:

• To critique the sufficiency of fair information principles for patient records.
• To propose an alternative ethical framework for managing patient data.
• To outline the derivation of a Code of Ethics for Medical Informatics Professionals.

Main Methods:

• Analyzing the theoretical and procedural limitations of fair information principles.
• Developing new ethical guidelines by conceptualizing patient records as patient analogs.
• Applying established ethical principles to these patient analogs.

Main Results:

• Fair information principles are deemed insufficient and ethically hazardous.
• A novel approach using patient analogs provides a stronger ethical basis.
• A method for deriving a professional code of ethics for medical informatics is demonstrated.

Conclusions:

• Patient record ethics require a more robust theoretical and procedural foundation than fair information principles offer.
• Treating patient records as analogs in decision-space allows for the application of sound ethical principles.
• This analogical approach can inform the development of comprehensive codes of ethics in medical informatics.