Ethics and HIT

Last week a task force for AMIA (American Medical Informatics Association) released a report entitled "Challenges in ethics, safety, best practices, and oversight regarding HIT vendors, their customers, and patients: a report of an AMIA special task force."  The report provides clear direction to vendors and system purchasers regarding ethics and HIT. 
 
A quote from the report abstract is below - although I took the liberty to bullet and emphasize statements to make them clear to the reader.  The full 5-page report is available online at http://jamia.bmj.com/site/icons/amiajnl8946.pdf
 
"Task Force findings and recommendations include:

• patient safety should trump all other values; corporate concerns about liability and intellectual property ownership may be valid but should not over-ride all other considerations;
• transparency and a commitment to patient safety should govern vendor contracts;
• institutions are duty-bound to provide ethics education to purchasers and users, and should commit publicly to standards of corporate conduct; and
• vendors, system purchasers, and users should encourage and assist in each others’ efforts to adopt best practices.

Finally, the HIT community should re-examine whether and how regulation of electronic health applications could foster improved care, public health, and patient safety."