Issues in Healthcare Informatics

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Consider your disciplinary perspective and think about your role as an informatics specialist, why is this content important? My discipline is psychiatry and according to Goodman, 1998 “behavioral sciences lent themselves especially well to computational decision support, if not emulation. Today the computer is used for patient or client tracking, assessment and testing, therapy and counseling, decision support, and other purposes.” (Goodman, 1998) The reason the role of an informatics specialist is important is that it is central to patient care. Informatics provides “…links between such care and what might otherwise seem abstract and time-wasting managerial activity.” (Katona, 2002) What is your role and responsibilities in the identification and resolution of the legal, ethical, social and public policy issues related to information technologies. My role as a psychiatric nurse and/or manager is understanding that as there are issues with confidentiality in medicine, so are there issues with confidentiality in behavioral health. If not more so this becomes an issue secondary to patients/clients seeking help within the context of a stigma, a labeling of a disease, what is looked upon by others as an imperfection. “Attention to ethical issues at the intersection of computing and mental health began more than a decade ago and has tended to emphasize confidentiality and privacy, professional standards, therapy, and most recently care management.” (Goodman, 1998, p. 19) What values are threatened by the increasing use of information and communication technologies in health care. Values such as respect are threatened by the use of information and communication technologies. “The inclusion of advanced directives in the electronic medical record whether respect is improved or not.” (Goodman, 1998, p. 19) Goodman speaks about the use of electronic

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