Ethics Memo - You are the HIM Director in an acute care hospital setting

Description

Scenario: You are the HIM Director in an acute care hospital setting. Your facility has purchased an electronic health record (EHR) system, and pressure is mounting to deploy this system as soon as possible by the chief information officer (CIO) and chief of the medical staff (CMS). However, during a testing period, you and your team discover that the EHR system does not comply with applicable federal privacy and security standards. It is your recommendation to stop the deployment until these issues can be resolved; however, the ClO and CMS disagree.

Using the AHIMA Code of Ethics (found in the Sayles and Gordon textbook or via link:

https://library.ahima.org/doc?0id=105098) outline your response as the HIM Director’s perspective to each of the steps as if you were writing the memorandum to the CIO and CMS. Consider the following steps in your response from legal, liability, and ethical perspectives.

1. Clearly define the issue.

2. Determine the facts of the situation.

3. Determine who the stakeholders are, the HIM values at stake, and the obligations and interests of each stakeholder.

4. Determine what options are available and evaluate them.

5. Decide what should be done.

6. Justify the decision made by identifying reasons that support the decision.

7. Implement the decision.

8. Evaluate the outcome of the decision.

9. Examine how to prevent the issue from recurring

Prepare a memorandum analyzing the key issues in this case and stating a recommendation. Feel free to use the Ethics Memo Template, also found in the Ethics folder under Files, to help guide your memo. Be sure to address all steps and to fill in the memo header sections (To; From; Subject; etc.).

Deliverables: Your memorandum should be a short paper submitted in Microsoft Word, addressing each step above from legal, liability, and ethical perspectives. The document should be double-spaced, in 12-point Times New Roman font, with one-inch margins, and sources properly cited. For additional expectations, please review rubric below.

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