Internet - Ethics of Online Medical Records Essays -- Exploratory Ess

The Ethics of Online Medical Records      Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   Abstract:   This paper describes the ethical implications of developing a national online medical database.   Such a database would contain the lifetime health records of every U.S. resident by combining information from a variety of sources.   The advantages of such a system are many, but in the end, the question remains whether patients want to trade privacy for better healthcare.    A lonely ninety-year-old Chinese woman walks into a clinic.   Without any medical records, the physicians diagnose her with stroke, and she is immediately hospitalized.   Two days later, her son arrives at the hospital, apparently quite angry with the doctors.   He informs the physicians that her mother has been in this condition for many years, and should not be treated for stroke.   Unfortunately, the treatment has already started, and the son is billed $12,000 for two days of hospitalization.   This unfortunate incident was witnessed by Jennifer Danek, M.D. in a San Francisco hospital.   She concludes, "Had we gotten the correct history, we could have saved this woman a lot of unnecessary testing and not cost her son his whole life savings" [3].      How ironic that in today's so-called Information Age, physicians have a shortage of accessible information on their own patients!   This lack of information on patients has not only handicapped physicians, but also jeopardized the lives of their patients.   In an attempt to fix this problem, some physicians have proposed the creation of a national database that contains the medical records of every American resident [4].   While the benefits of this system are many, opponents argue that patients' privacy may be compromised.   Worse, confidential pati... ...logy Revolution Brings New Ethical and Legal Risks." Psychiatric News (2000): 26 pars. 26 Jan. 2001. <http://www.psych.org/pnews/00-05-05/tech.html>. 2.  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   Chapman, Audrey. Healthcare and Information Ethics. Kansas City: Sheed and Ward, 1997. 3.  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   Danek, Jennifer, M.D., The Med School Survival Guide. New York: Three Rivers Press, 2000. 4.  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   Davis, Michael. Computerizing Healthcare Information. Chicago: Probus Publishing Company, 1994. 5.  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   Orentlicher, David and Barr, Bob. "Is a 'unique health identifier' for every American a good idea?"42 pars. 26 Jan 2001. <http:// www.findarticles.com/cf_0/m1571/n31_v1 4/21064144/ print.jhtml>. 6.  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   Orentlicher, David. and Healy, Bernadine. "Point/Counterpoint: Should Americans' medical records include unique identifiers?" Physician's Weekly, Nov. 1998 Vol. XV: 43.

Book Review of Julie Salamon’s Hospital

Julie Salamon’s book Hospital: Man, Woman, Birth, Death, Infinity, Plus Red Tape, Bad Behavior, Money, God and Diversity on Steroids presents an informative and revelatory portrayal of how medicine and the U. S. health care system operates within the confines of our modern and multicultural society. The book offers a unique perspective as the story is told from the standpoint of those who manage, organize and run the inner workings of the Maimonides Medical Centre.Thus offering her readers not only an investigation of the relationship between doctors and their patients but also presents the financial, multicultural and ethical concerns and issues faced by the hospital staff and patients. In her book Salamon raises the important issue of how medical institutions, which are put in place to serve and aid the sick and the wounded, are constantly competing against external and internal pressures of money and politics.She explores the expectations imposed by a fragile health care sy stem upon hospitals that are simply overwhelmed by the urgency and needs of their communities. This reality is presented in the very first chapter of her book where she introduces the reader to a young doctor named Gregorius who has come to Maimonides Medical Center to complete his residency. Here the reader is given the first impressions of the new comer who describes the emergency area as â€Å"Crowded. Really crowded.Stretchers with patients were lined up two-and three-deep, with the lucky ones semi-secluded behind curtains that barely closed†¦had he landed in the Third World country or a developing nation†¦Ã¢â‚¬  (p. 16) Salamon reveals that â€Å"Overcrowding had become commonplace in American emergency rooms which had, for people without medical insurance, become the doctor’s office. † (p. 16) She reveals a system which encourages the over flooding of emergency rooms with paying patients who are then rushed through the process of discharge as quickly as possible, so as to create a continual flow of turn over, she says admits one doctor.(p. ) Consequently, the continual over flooding then leads to a destructive cycle of nurses and doctors mending the ill and the wounded at a hurried pace thus giving way to possible neglect and carelessness of patient care and the eventual overload and burnout of the medical staff. In her book, Salamon conveys how the infrastructure within our health care system is being governed by a marketplace philosophy whereby doctors are just as concerned about profits and reimbursements as they are about delivering care.How efficient is a system which is more concerned with getting patients out the door than allowing them to fully recover in an environment which has their best interest at heart. Not only has the system been shown to be faulty and inefficient but on what level is the process to be challenged in respect to morality? Should society look the other way simply because in the end the patient does receive care and survives? Overall Salamon offers an emotional account of the trials and tribulations of the various medical and administrative staff of the Maimonides Medical Centre.However, Salamon’s investigation of the inner workings of urban hospitals neglects to demonstrate how certain financial and social issues plague the average American seeking hospital treatment. The topic of the uninsured and their treatment within the hospital setting is barely spoken of by Salamon; she fails to address the issues that afflict so many lower and middle class individuals who are clearly dissuaded from showing up at local hospitals simply because they do not have insurance.Instead she chooses to present the reader with a medical staff that is focused on the individual patient rather than with the larger social issues which doesn’t make very much sense for a book whose main purpose is to investigate the functioning of the U. S. health care system. In summary, the fact of the m atter is that one day either you or a loved one will be a patient in a hospital and despite the fact that you were led to believe that hospitals are institutions free of any bureaucracy, politics and cultural influence this is simply not the case.The medical attention received by any individual within the United Sates health care system is inevitably influenced by the multiculturalism that surrounds us, the constant evolution of technology and the economics which engulfs any private or public institution. These are aspects which as demonstrated in Salamon’s book, prevail even in a non-profit medical facility like the Maimonides Medical Centre. References Salamon, J. (2008). Hospital: Man, Woman, Birth, Death, Infinity, Plus Red Tape, Bad Behavior, Money, God and Diversity on Steroids. N

Slippery Slope Fallacy - Definition and Examples

In informal logic, slippery slope is a  fallacy in which a course of action is objected to on the grounds that once taken it will lead to additional actions until some undesirable consequence results. Also known as the slippery slope argument and the  domino fallacy. The slippery slope is a fallacy, says Jacob E. Van Fleet, precisely because we can never know if a whole series of events and/or a certain result is determined to follow one event or action in particular. Usually, but not always, the slippery slope argument is used as a fear tactic (Informal Logical Fallacies, 2011). Examples and Observations To judge from the news stories, the entire nation is coming to resemble San Francisco after a heavy rainfall. In the press, the phrase slippery slope is more than seven times as common as it was twenty years ago. Its a convenient way of warning of the dire effects of some course of action without actually having to criticize the action itself, which is what makes it a favorite ploy of hypocrites: Not that theres anything wrong with A, mind you, but A will lead to B and then C, and before you know it well be up to our armpits in Z.(Geoff Nunberg, commentary on Fresh Air, National Public Radio, July 1, 2003)The slippery slope fallacy is committed only when we accept without further justification or argument that once the first step is taken, the others are going to follow, or that whatever would justify the first step would, in fact, justify the rest. Note, also, that what some see as the undesirable consequence lurking at the bottom of the slope others may regard as very desirable ind eed.(Howard Kahane and Nancy Cavender, Logic and Contemporary Rhetoric, 8th ed., Wadsworth, 1998)The Slippery Slope of Voluntary EuthanasiaIf voluntary euthanasia were to be legalized it would prove impossible to avoid the legislation, or, at least, toleration, of non-voluntary euthanasia. Even if the former can be justified, the latter clearly cannot. Hence, it is better that the first step (legalizing voluntary euthanasia) not be taken so as to prevent a slide into non-volunteer euthanasia.(John Keown, quoted by Robert Young in Medically Assisted Death. Cambridge University Press, 2007)The Slippery Slope of Public MuralsI hope the art mural at 34th and Habersham will not be allowed. You open the gate for one, you open it for all and youll have it all over the city. A person wanting to paint on buildings is nothing more than upscale graffiti. More than likely it will go too far.(anonymous, Vox Populi. Savannah Morning News, September 22, 2011)All Politics Takes Place on a Slippery SlopeLogicians call the slippery slope a classic logical fallacy. There’s no reason to reject doing one thing, they say, just because it might open the door for some undesirable extremes; permitting â€Å"A† does not suspend our ability to say but not B or certainly not Z down the line. Indeed, given the endless parade of imagined horribles one could conjure up for any policy decision, the slippery slope can easily become an argument for doing nothing at all. Yet act we do; as George Will once noted, All politics takes place on a slippery slope.That’s never been more true, it seems, than now. Allowing gay marriage puts us on the slippery slope to polygamy and bestiality, opponents say; gun registration would start us sliding into the unconstitutional morass of universal arms confiscation. An NSA whistle-blower, William Binney, said last week that the agency’s surveillance activities put us on a slippery slope toward a totalitarian state . . .. And this we ek we’re hearing a similar argument that President Obama’s decision to arm Syrian rebels, however meagerly, has all but doomed us to an Iraq-style debacle . . .. These critics may be right to urge caution, but in their panicked vehemence, they’ve abandoned nuance and succumbed to summoning up worst-case scenarios. UCLA law professor Eugene Volokh points out that metaphors like the slippery slope often start by enriching our vision and end by clouding it. Decriminalizing marijuana doesn’t have to turn the U.S. into a stoner nation, nor does sending M-16s to Syrian rebels inevitably mean boots on the ground in Damascus. But that’s not to say we shouldn’t watch our footing.(James Graff, The Week. The Week, June 28, 2013)The Slippery Slope of Immigration ReformIn a well-meaning effort to curb the employment of illegal aliens, and with the hearty good wishes of editorialists who ordinarily pride themselves on guarding against the intrusion of gov ernment into the private lives of individual Americans, Congress is about to take this generations longest step toward totalitarianism.There is no slippery slope toward loss of liberties, insists Senator Alan Simpson of Wyoming, author of the latest immigration bill, only a long staircase where each step downward must be first tolerated by the American people and their leaders.The first step downward on the Simpson staircase to Big-Brotherdom is the requirement that within three years the federal government comes up with a secure system to determine employment eligibility in the United States.Despite denials, that means a national identity card. Nobody who is pushing this bill admits that--on the contrary, all sorts of safeguards and rhetorical warnings about not having to carry an identity card on ones person at all times are festooned on the bill. Much is made of the use of passports, Social Security cards and drivers licenses as preferred forms of identification, but anyone who t akes the trouble to read this legislation can see that the disclaimers are intended to help the medicine go down. . . .Once the down staircase is set in place, the temptation to take each next step will be irresistible.(William Safire, The Computer Tattoo. The New York Times, Sep. 9, 1982)