Ethical Issues of Public Health Reporting and Data Sharing

NB: We do not resell your papers. Upon ordering, we do an original paper exclusively for you.

NB: All your data is kept safe from the public.

Table of Contents

Introduction
Defining the Ethical Issue
The Potential Liabilities
The Strategies to Address the Issue
Conclusion
References

Introduction

The healthcare industry encompasses a broad spectrum of activities related to private patient information regarding their health status and treatment procedures. Last year has been a unique challenge for the global healthcare system, including all the data-related operations that require nuanced approaches in the digital era. Public health reporting and data sharing present the most fundamental and disturbing ethical concerns within a massive technology integration into the medical realm.

Defining the Ethical Issue

The reporting and sharing of data concerning public health pose ethical issues that are focused on the national level. As such, data needs to be rigorously coordinated at the national level, even if health data itself is gathered locally (Subbian et al., 2021). Data sharing is deeply embedded in the core ethical concepts, including privacy, confidentiality, and informed consent (Kalkman et al., 2019). When the health emergency unfolds, rapid and ethically correct data sharing is crucial to take immediate action.

However, when health data is reported and shared without the patients’ consent, it undermines its autonomy. Hence, patients might be inclined to withhold critical health information because of the lack of trust in the healthcare system’s security. The medical treatment can also be compromised when health data is shared incorrectly, so the ethical implications for the electronic health records (EHRs) and related policies are significant (Kalkman et al., 2019). Ethical imperatives for reporting and sharing public health data are necessary to help define etiological factors, prevent disease spread, assess treatment methods, and regulate harnessing of limited resources.

The Potential Liabilities

Data sharing constitutes an ethical hazard to the patients involved in the process. The unwanted parties involved in the process might jeopardize patients’ identities and facilitate health-related stigma and discrimination, as well as a privacy breach. Also, data might be used for research purposes that patients are not informed about, which is an inappropriate measure in healthcare. According to the AMIA Code of Ethics, members involved in patient care must ensure that patients and their families are aware of the use of EHRs containing their personal health information (Petersen et al., 2018). Patients should never be misinformed about the health data handling process; they must be necessarily involved in this process by having access to their electronic health information. Health data must be recorded, maintained, and shared in a “safe, reliable, secure, and confidential” approach (Petersen et al., 2018, p. 1580). Patient information should never be disclosed in violation of legal requirements or established privacy practices.

The Strategies to Address the Issue

Medical workers and health informatics specialists must lead all the data collection and sharing practices responsibly, given the security and privacy concerns of the personal information of patients and communities involved. The strategies designed to address this ethical issue must primarily concentrate all the efforts to secure public health records to avoid unauthorized disclosure (Meyer, 2018). They must be developed on the ethical basis of social value, respect, justice, and transparency. Healthcare organizations should implement the following measure to prevent the harmful impact of incorrect public health reporting and data sharing:

Crucial health data elements must be coordinated at local, state, and national levels.
Subgroup data analysis is required to evaluate health disparities among minority groups (avoiding the stigma mentioned above).
Public health reporting should include sociodemographic factors to protect the possible unethical bias.
Data handling must be transparent for all the members involved, particularly patients under the study or treatment. It is obligatory to get consent to retain and share data and remain mindful when assessing the risks of re-identification.
Researchers gathering sensitive public data should never use information collected from closed communities by using false pretenses.

Conclusion

Sensitive patient data is strictly governed and protected by privacy laws and established ethical standards that each healthcare provider must follow. The ethical requirements presented by the AMIA encourage patients to actively engage in gathering, managing, and distributing essential health data. Health informatics emphasizes that data management processes at health organizations must comply with applicable laws, local privacy and security policies, and accepted informatics ethical standards.

References

Kalkman, S., Mostert, M., Gerlinger, C., Delden, J., & van Thiel, G. (2019). Responsible data sharing in international health research: A systematic review of principles and norms.BMC Medical Ethics. 20(21), 1–13. Web.

Meyer, M. N. (2018). Practical tips for ethical data sharing. Advances in Methods and Practices in Psychological Science, 1(1), 131–144. Web.

Petersen, C., Berner, E. S., Embi, P. J., Hollis, K. F., Goodman, K. W., Koppel, R., Lehmann, C. U., Lehmann, H., Maulden, S. A., McGregor, K. A., Solomonides, A., Subbian, V., Terrazas, E., & Winkelstein, P. (2018). AMIA’s code of professional and ethical conduct 2018.Journal of the American Medical Informatics Association, 25(11), 1579–1582. Web.

Subbian, V., Solomonides, A., Clarkson, M., Rahimzadeh, V. N., Petersen, C., Schreiber, R., DeMuro, P. R., Dua, P., Goodman, K. W., Kaplan, B., Koppel, R., Lehmann, C. U., Pan, E., & Senathirajah, Y. (2021). Ethics and informatics in the age of COVID-19: Challenges and recommendations for public health organization and public policy.Journal of the American Medical Informatics Association, 28(1), 184–189. Web.

Click Here To Order Now!

Ethical Issues of Public Health Reporting and Data Sharing

Do you need this or any other assignment done for you from scratch?

We have qualified writers to help you.

We assure you a quality paper that is 100% free from plagiarism and AI.

You can choose either format of your choice ( Apa, Mla, Havard, Chicago, or any other)