Summary

Health Informatics Professionals (HIP) "are embedded in a web of relationships that are subject to important ethical constraints" that pull in different directions (IMIA, 2015) . Updated from a set of principles first drafted in 2003 (IMIA, 2003), this document first defines a set of fundamental ethical principles and general principles of informatic ethics, then it derives specific sets of ethical duties to subjects of electronic health records, health care providers, employers, society and the profession.
A distinct code is necessary, argue the authors, because "HIPs play a unique role and occupy a unique position that is distinct from that of informatics professionals who do not specialize in health care data and who do not work in the health care setting" (Ibid). The code of ethics is based, write the authors, on "a set of fundamental ethical principles that have found general international acceptance." From there, it is "applied to the gathering, processing, storing, communicating, using, linking, manipulating and accessing health data in general" (IMIA, 2015) .

Content

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