Discussions

1) Health informatics professionals work with protected health information on a daily basis. In addition to the laws that protect the security and privacy of patient information, there are ethical considerations involved in this work. You have obligations to patients and the healthcare team, to your employer, to the public, and to your peers, professional associations, and self.

The four basic ethical principles are autonomy (deciding for oneself), beneficence (doing good), non-maleficence (not harming others) and justice (treating people fairly). Whether we realize it or not, we make many of our decisions based on our personal and professional ethics.

1. Managing health information ethically has an impact on each of the groups mentioned above. Select one, and discuss how you are ethically obliged to that group in your professional role.

2. Discuss how the ethical principles influence your decisions when working with protected health information.

2) A consultant commented that "too often the numbers look good but feel bad". This comment often stems from an estimation error common to capital budgeting proposals that relate to future cash flows. Three reasons for this error often exist. First, reliability in predicting cash flows several years into the future is very difficult. Second, the present value of cash flows many years into the future (say, beyond 10 years) is often very small. Third, it is difficult for personal biases and expectations not to unduly influence present value computations.

Discuss why these three areas are important to identify for estimation errors when you are considering an investment project.