Browsing by Subject "Data safety"

Now showing 1 - 2 of 2
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    Biobanks and Electronic Health Records: Ethical and Policy Challenges in the Genomic Age
    (IU Center for Applied Cybersecurity Research, 2009-10) Meslin, Eric M.; Goodman, Kenneth
    In this paper we discuss the ethical and policy challenges presented by the construction and use of biobanks and electronic health records systems, with a particular focus on how these resources implicate certain types of security concerns for patients, families, health care providers and institutions. These two technology platforms are selected for special emphasis in this paper for two reasons. First and foremost, there is a close connection between them. Indeed, of the many accepted definitions, this one from the German National Bioethics Commission provides a sense of this close connection and the great power and reflects the great power these two separate platforms provide to probe more deeply the connection between genotype and phenotype: "...[B]iobanks are defined as collections of samples of human bodily substances (e.g., cells, tissues, blood or DNA as the physical medium of genetic information) that are or can be associated with personal data and information on their donors." Second, these two topics implicate both clinical ethics issues (those arising at the bedside for health care providers and patients), and human research ethics issues (issues arising for scientists, research subjects, ethics review bodies and regulatory authorities). Both of these sub-specialty areas confront similar and complementary ethical issues; for example, issues arising from the nature and adequacy of informed consent, the sufficiency of systems to protect personal privacy and confidentiality, or the need to balance concerns relating to data security and the need to know. A growing research base supports calls for more attention to these issues, and yet current professional ethics frameworks and policy consultation methods are poorly organized and ill-equipped to anticipate and fully address ethical issues in health information technology generally, or to provide adequate ethical assessment of the tools that elicit these issues. Our strategy is to orient readers to the history and context of these issues, to frame several key challenges for researchers and policy makers, and then to close with several recommendations for next steps.
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    Dentists’ Information Needs and Opinions on Accessing Patient Information via Health Information Exchange: Survey Study
    (JMIR, 2024-01-11) Li, Shuning; Gomez, Grace Felix; Xu, Huiping; Rajapuri, Anushri Singh; Dixon, Brian E.; Thyvalikakath, Thankam; Biostatistics and Health Data Science, Richard M. Fairbanks School of Public Health
    Background: The integration of medical and dental records is gaining significance over the past 2 decades. However, few studies have evaluated the opinions of practicing dentists on patient medical histories. Questions remain on dentists' information needs; their perception of the reliability of patient-reported medical history; satisfaction with the available information and the methods to gather this information; and their attitudes to other options, such as a health information exchange (HIE) network, to collect patient medical history. Objective: This study aims to determine Indiana dentists' information needs regarding patients' medical information and their opinions about accessing it via an HIE. Methods: We administered a web-based survey to Indiana Dental Association members to assess their current medical information-retrieval approaches, the information critical for dental care, and their willingness to access or share information via an HIE. We used descriptive statistics to summarize survey results and multivariable regression to examine the associations between survey respondents' characteristics and responses. Results: Of the 161 respondents (161/2148, 7.5% response rate), 99.5% (n=160) respondents considered patients' medical histories essential to confirm no contraindications, including allergies or the need for antibiotic prophylaxis during dental care and other adverse drug events. The critical information required were medical conditions or diagnosis, current medications, and allergies, which were gathered from patient reports. Furthermore, 88.2% (n=142) of respondents considered patient-reported histories reliable; however, they experienced challenges obtaining information from patients and physicians. Additionally, 70.2% (n=113) of respondents, especially those who currently access an HIE or electronic health record, were willing to use an HIE to access or share their patient's information, and 91.3% (n=147) shared varying interests in such a service. However, usability, data accuracy, data safety, and cost are the driving factors in adopting an HIE. Conclusions: Patients' medical histories are essential for dentists to optimize dental care, especially for those with chronic conditions. In addition, most dentists are interested in using an HIE to access patient medical histories. The findings from this study can provide an alternative option for improving communications between dental and medical professionals and help the health information technology system or tool developers identify critical requirements for more user-friendly designs.