Real-Life Decision Making
Medical informatics professionals face tough decisions every day. Much of their work is in the area of decision support -- like helping caregivers make decisions regarding patient care.
One of the major issues facing health care today is the "right to privacy." Medical informaticians, health information science professionals and nursing informaticians all have access to the personal and medical information of thousands of people.
Before you got your master of science in nursing degree, specializing in informatics, you were a pediatric nurse at the same hospital you work at now as an information systems training officer. You have access to the medical files of patients in your hospital and several hospitals in other states.
Your job no longer involves direct patient care. Now you help develop the information system, work out the kinks, and train doctors and nurses on how to use the system.
Sometimes people you know are admitted to hospital. Your neighbor's 19-year-old son has been involved in a car accident in another state. He's been admitted to hospital and his mother is frantic about her son's condition. She calls you and asks if you can help her out.
She tells you she's been in touch with the doctors who are caring for her son, and they haven't been able to give her any kind of definitive answers about his condition. The young man's mother isn't satisfied with the information they've given her.
The hospital her son has been admitted to just happens to be within your region. It would be easy for you to take a peek at his file. It would tell you everything from his age and address to his temperature and how many units of blood he's received.
As a nurse, you looked at patient records, but only those for the patients you were caring for. While it's true you have no legitimate reason to be looking at the man's file, his mother is your neighbor and could really use your friendship and support right now. You're a mother yourself, and you would certainly want to know all the facts were it your son who'd been injured.
Your neighbor has booked a flight to be at her son's bedside, but she'd really like to know what she's going to find when she gets there. She asks you to look at his file. What do you do?