Question

You are the HIM Director in an acute care hospital setting. Your facility has purchased an electronic health record (EHR) system and pressure is mounting to deploy this system as soon as possible by the chief information officer (CIO) and chief of the medical staff (CMS). However, during a testing period, you and your staff discover that the EHR system does not comply with applicable federal privacy and security standards. It is your recommendation to stop the deployment until these issues can be resolved; however, the CIO and CMS disagree.

Using Table 6.2 in the textbook titled Steps in Ethical Decision Making,

1. Clearly define the issue.

2. Determine the facts of the situation.

3. Determine who the stakeholders are, the values at stake, and the obligations and interests of each stakeholder.

4. Determine what options are available and evaluate them.

5. Decide what should be done.

6. Justify the decision made by identifying reasons that support the decision.

7. Implement the decision.

8. Evaluate the outcome of the decision.

9. Examine how to prevent the issue from recurring.

outline your response as the HIM director’s perspective to each of the nine steps as if you were writing the memorandum to the CIO and CMS. If you do not have enough information available for a given step, add questions and/or inquiries you might make to gather the information in your response. Consider your response from the legal, liability, and ethical perspectives.

Answer 1

Ans.) Clearification of the issue is very important to communicate and resolve the issue with higher authorities.

First of all check the fact and information regarding the present situation which includes why the electronic health record (EHR) system is not ok to implement, means what are the loop holes.

It is the responsibility of the the stakeholders to purchase any instrument or system which follow all the compliances and legal issues (applicable federal privacy and security standards).

In the current situation, the only options is available is to resolve the matter soon and for the time being record the medical data of the patient as it was previously done.

In my opinion, it is quite necessary to follow all the protocol before the instaallation of this system.

If the matter is not resolved , it is loss of both the parties, like the hospital authorities and patient.

The chief information officer (CIO) and chief of the medical staff (CMS) also have a valid point as they want to statr the electronic health record (EHR) system as soon as possible for the better health record which directly improves the health condition of the people.