Welcome to the Nexus of Ethics, Psychology, Morality, Philosophy and Health Care

Welcome to the nexus of ethics, psychology, morality, technology, health care, and philosophy
Showing posts with label Information Technology. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Information Technology. Show all posts

Friday, August 14, 2015

Distributed Morality in an Information Society

Luciano Floridi
Sci Eng Ethics (2013) 19:727–743
DOI 10.1007/s11948-012-9413-4

Abstract

The phenomenon of distributed knowledge is well-known in epistemic logic. In this paper, a similar phenomenon in ethics, somewhat neglected so far, is investigated, namely distributed morality. The article explains the nature of distributed morality, as a feature of moral agency, and explores the implications of its occurrence in advanced information societies. In the course of the analysis, the concept of infraethics is introduced, in order to refer to the ensemble of moral enablers, which, although morally neutral per se, can significantly facilitate or hinder both positive and negative moral behaviours.

Here is an excerpt from the conclusion:

The conclusion is that an information society is a better society if it can implement an array of moral enablers, an infraethics that is, that can support and facilitate the right sort of DM, while preventing the occurrence and strengthening of moral hinderers. Agents (including, most importantly, the State) are better agents insofar as they not only take advantage of, but also foster the right kind of moral facilitation properly geared to the right kind of distributed morality. It is a complicated scenario, but refusing to acknowledge it will not make it go away.

The entire paper is here.

Friday, May 1, 2015

Obama Administration Report Slams Digital Health Records

By Melinda Beck
The Wall Street Journal
Originally published on April 10, 2015

The Obama administration took vendors of electronic health records to task for making it costly and cumbersome to share patient information and frustrating a $30 billion push to use digital records to improve quality and cut costs.

The report, by the Office of the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology, listed a litany of complaints it has received about vendors allegedly charging hefty fees to set up connections and share patient records; requiring customers to use proprietary platforms; and making it prohibitively expensive to switch systems.

The report also cited complaints that some hospital systems make it difficult to transfer patient records to rival systems or physicians as a way to control referrals and enhance their market dominance.

The entire article is here.

Sunday, December 14, 2014

Privacy and Information Technology

By Jeroen van den Hoven, Martijn Blaauw, Wolter Pieters, and Martijn Warnier
The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Winter 2014 Edition), Edward N. Zalta (ed.)

Human beings value their privacy and the protection of their personal sphere of life. They value some control over who knows what about them. They certainly do not want their personal information to be accessible to just anyone at any time. But recent advances in information technology threaten privacy and have reduced the amount of control over personal data and open up the possibility of a range of negative consequences as a result of access to personal data. The 21st century has become the century of Big Data and advanced Information Technology allows for the storage and processing of exabytes of data. The revelations of Edward Snowden have demonstrated that these worries are real and that the technical capabilities to collect, store and search large quantities of data concerning telephone conversations, internet searches and electronic payment are now in place and are routinely used by government agencies. For business firms, personal data about customers and potential customers are now also a key asset. At the same time, the meaning and value of privacy remains the subject of considerable controversy. The combination of increasing power of new technology and the declining clarity and agreement on privacy give rise to problems concerning law, policy and ethics. The focus of this article is on exploring the relationship between information technology (IT) and privacy. We will both illustrate the specific threats that IT and innovations in IT pose for privacy, and indicate how IT itself might be able to overcome these privacy concerns by being developed in a ‘privacy-sensitive way’. We will also discuss the role of emerging technologies in the debate, and account for the way in which moral debates are themselves affected by IT.

The entire entry is here.

Friday, July 18, 2014

Electronic Health Records: First, Do No Harm?

EHRs are commonly promoted as boosting patient safety, but are we all being fooled?

By David F. Carr
InformationWeek
Originally published June 26, 2014

One of the top stated goals of the federal Meaningful Use program encouraging adoption of electronic health records (EHR) technology is to improve patient safety. But is there really a cause-and-effect relationship between digitizing health records and reducing medical errors? Poorly implemented health information technology can also introduce new errors, whether from scrambled data or confusing user interfaces, sometimes causing harm to flesh-and-blood patients.

The entire article is here.

Saturday, July 13, 2013

Avoiding the digital ‘flock’

By Chuck Leddy,
Harvard Gazette
Originally published June 27, 2013

Here are two excerpts:

Digital tools actually encourage flocking (called “homophily” by social scientists), Zuckerman said. For instance, “Facebook is very good at connecting us with people we’re already connected with.”  Zuckerman also mentioned Facebook’s search function, which personalizes results based on your “likes” and the preferences of your friends. “It’s kind of creepy,” said Zuckerman. “I’m not sure I want my friends pre-filtering for me.”

Whether in the real or virtual worlds, said Zuckerman, “We have a talent for finding people with the same socioeconomic background or racial background. But this tendency to flock may be keeping us from finding the information we need,” and the tools we’ve built for the Internet only enhance our flocking bias.

“My fear is that our tools are not promoting diversity,” said Zuckerman, whose appearance served as a launch party for his book “Rewire.” Personalization tools “want to give you precisely what you want, to make you comfortable” and ready to buy things, he said. “The danger is that we may be driven into small circles of the same content,” a sort of digital self-segregation into echo chambers where none of our assumptions get scrutinized.

(cut)

How then should people manage their tendency to seek out like-minded folk? First, they need to track their behavior for the presence of flocking bias. Zuckerman showed a graph exposing his own Twitter “follow bias”: Only 27 percent of the people he follows are women. “This is an embarrassing slide,” Zuckerman said, “but now when I follow someone, I think about” the follow bias. He said people need to be self-reflective about their media-consumption preferences, and push back against them. “I know that left on my own, I’d spend all my time reading cute cat macros on Reddit” or constantly consuming news about his beloved Green Bay Packers.

The entire story is here.

Saturday, January 5, 2013

New tools to help providers protect patient data in mobile devices

U.S. Department of Health & Human Services
Press Release
December 12, 2012

Launched by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) today, a new education initiative and set of online tools provide health care providers and organizations practical tips on ways to protect their patients’ protected health information when using mobile devices such as laptops, tablets, and smartphones.

The initiative is called Mobile Devices: Know the RISKS. Take the STEPS. PROTECT and SECURE Health Information and is available at www.HealthIT.gov/mobiledevices.  It offers educational resources such as videos, easy-to-download fact sheets, and posters to promote best ways to safeguard patient health information.

“The use of mobile health technology holds great promise in improving health and health care, but the loss of health information can have a devastating impact on the trust that patients have in their providers.  It’s important that these tools are used correctly,” said Joy Pritts, HHS’ Office of the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology (ONC) chief privacy officer. “Health care providers, administrators and their staffs must create a culture of privacy and security across their organizations to ensure the privacy and security of their patients’ protected health information.”

Despite providers’ increasing use of using mobile technology for clinical use, research has shown  that only 44 percent of survey respondents encrypt their mobile devices.  Mobile device benefits—portability, size, and convenience—present a challenge when it comes to protecting and securing health information.

Along with theft and loss of devices, other risks, such as the inadvertent download of viruses or other malware, are top among reasons for unintentional disclosure of patient data to unauthorized users.

“We know that health care providers care deeply about patient trust and the importance of keeping health information secure and confidential,” said Leon Rodriguez, director of the HHS Office for Civil Rights. “This education effort and new online resource give health care providers common sense tools to help prevent their patients’ health information from falling into the wrong hands.”

For more information, tips, and steps on protecting and securing health information when using a mobile device visit www.HealthIT.gov/mobiledevices.

Wednesday, January 2, 2013

Mobile medical apps & FDA regulation

The Growth of the Health IT Sector and the Need for More Robust FDA Regulation

By Adam
Nurep
Originally posted on December 21, 2012


Over the last six years, there has been significant growth in the health technology sector (e.g. mobile medical apps), driven by advances in technology and an increase in venture capital (VC) funding. VCs have been lured into the space due to the perception of high returns on investment within shorter timeframes versus their traditional life science funds. The significant growth in this market has driven the need for increased scrutiny from the FDA in how these products should be regulated.

The FDA has the authority to regulate software if it falls within the broad definition of a “device”. It has further segmented medical devices into three classes; Class I, Class II and Class III. Class I devices don’t require FDA regulatory filing (i.e., 510(K), Premarket Approval Application (PMA)) whereas Class II requires 510(K) and Class III devices require a PMA. The class to which a device is assigned determines the type of premarketing submission/application required for FDA clearance, prior to product launch.

While the FDA has had policies in place for many years regarding the regulation of software/computer products, it has historically taken the position not to enforce the regulation unless the product interfaces directly with a medical device. In cases such as these, products have then been subjected to regulation as if they were a medical device. This caused problems for the manufacturers of these devices as there was no structured classification system based on a risk assessment, making it difficult to predict whether a device would end up being a Class I, II or III medical device. Furthermore, the rapid adoption of mobile technology within healthcare meant that there was a pressing need to develop specific guidelines around the regulation of these products also (out of the 14,558 medical apps currently available, only 75 have received clearance from the FDA).

The entire article is here.