Ethical Issues in Information Technology and e-Health

摘要

The continued deployment of new and evermore powerful information technology (IT) and information systems (IS) presents an increasingly important ethical challenge within the healthcare field for IT, business, and healthcare professionals. The increased use of the Internet by those seeking medical information provides an excellent opportunity for data collection both openly and surreptitiously by target marketers and others. Data collected when individuals visit various e-Health sites may be combined with public records and private databases. From this collection, data mining and other techniques may be used to develop a profile of the individual, which may be used to make decisions about the individual. Data collection, manipulation, and data mining technologies present opportunities for misuse of medical information which could prevent individuals from obtaining health insurance, employment, or financial instruments such as loans, mortgages, or lines of credit. There is also the potential for the compilation of an inaccurate user profile which may lead to incorrect decision making about that individual. There is an ethical concern that this collected and manipulated data may give health insurance providers and marketers power over these individuals. The use of IT for this purpose may be unethical, and the IT industry is responsible for taking steps to ensure that the data is not collected or used in an unethical manner.