Electronic records are fundamentally different from paper-based records in more than merely a technical sense. They allow an unprecedented insight into the patient's health profile and function as patient analogues in making health care decisions by individual health care providers, health care institutions, agencies, and insurance corporations. The development of these records therefore has tremendous ethical implications. This book develops a theory of the nature of electronic patient records as informatic patient analogues and presents the ethical implications that follow from their unique status. The rights and duties of physicians, health information professionals, as well as hospitals and other institutions receive special consideration. Suggestions for appropriate codes and regulation are also included.
"Kluge has contributed to the discipline of Health Informatics by providing an ethical framework of unsurpassed clarity and precision for the electronically based patient record. His logical arguments are as persuasive as they are fresh, original, and unique. Furthermore his critique of current, alternative approaches is telling and demands that their proponents either respond or stand down. Health Informaticians owe him at least a debt of gratitude for providing a coherent theory in a subject light on theory. Much more is his due though given the potential that his work has. If we take his work seriously (and why ever not?), then this account has significant, far reaching effects upon the practical aspects of Health Informatics, for institutions, stake-holders, the profession, service and research." (Dr. Stephen Kay, Professor of Health Informatics, University of Salford)