Ethics, Computing, and Medicine: Informatics and the Transformation of Health Care [Hardcover]

Kenneth W. Goodman (Editor)

Book Description

Publication Date: December 13, 1997 | ISBN-10: 0521464862 | ISBN-13: 978-0521464864

As those in medicine increasingly depend on computers and other intelligent machines, the intersection of ethics, computing and the health professions grows much more complex and significant. This book attempts to systematically identify and address the full range of ethical issues that arise when intelligent machines are used in medicine, nursing, psychology, and allied health professions. It explores a variety of important issues, including ethics and evaluation in computational medicine; patient and provider confidentiality; responsibility for use of computers in medicine; appropriate use of decision support systems; outcomes research and computational prognosis (including mortality predictions); and computer-based biomedical research--especially meta-analysis. It is accessible to professionals and students in the fields of bioethics and medical informatics.

Editorial Reviews

Review

"This collection promises, and delivers, a much needed introduction to issues arising from the use of computers in various areas of medicine and medical research. Its strength is in its diversity in the issues it raises, rather than an attempt at their resolution...useful and welcome for what it presents." Doody's Review Service ®

"An excellent resource." Booklist

"The entire volume has considerable strengths, with compelling essays...Ken Goodman should be credited with ensuring that the highest standards in conceptual approaches to the topic and in overall rhetorical style are maintained...well conceived and well written...Goodman himself is a writer of considerable power and persuasion...a timely and important contribution to the literature about medical ethics, health care policy, and information technology." Phillip V. Davis, Ph.D., Southern Illinois University School of Medicine

Book Description

As those in medicine increasingly depend on computers and other intelligent machines, the intersection of ethics, computing and the health professions grows much more complex and significant. This book attempts to systematically identify and address the full range of ethical issues that arise when intelligent machines are used in medicine, nursing, psychology, and allied health professions. It is appropriate for professionals and students in the fields of bioethics and medical informatics.

Product Details

• Hardcover: 192 pages
• Publisher: Cambridge University Press (December 13, 1997)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0521464862
• ISBN-13: 978-0521464864
• Product Dimensions: 9 x 6 x 0.7 inches
• Shipping Weight: 15.8 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #3,947,707 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

1 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Health Care Informatics for the early 21st Century, June 23, 2000

By A Customer

This review is from: Ethics, Computing, and Medicine: Informatics and the Transformation of Health Care (Hardcover)

This compilation of essays focuses on current issues and future speculation on health care informatics. It is a good replacement for the 1992 title "Health and the New Media: Technologies Transforming Personal and Public Health." It is no easy task to intersect 3 vast areas of inquiry: ethics, computing, and medicine and the writers of this volume realize that the future of health professions is computational and that a lack of attention to ethical issues in informatics is no longer adequate and that the issues are larger even than confidentiality, privacy, and legal issues. Medical values and human values can frequently be at odds, and technology has had a major impact on things people value most. Each chapter deals with a different aspect of cybermedicine and each author wrestles with the question "Are there health-related tasks that computers should never be permitted to perform?" Psychiatric judgments are one example of this type of function.

Another important issue discussed is responsibility for computer-based decisions. One author proposes to change the focus of malpractice suits away from machine designers and toward the responsibilty of physicians who defer to machine judgments. Rather than asking who did what, the author asks how to promote certain social goods by choosing between theories of accountability. This book is unusual in that it addresses not just the dilemma of patient/access, but also the dilemma of the health care provider and the institution. It was surprising, however, not to read one mention of HIPAA (Heath Information Privacy and Accountability Act, 1996). It also lacked some of the interesting historical information that provides the backdrop for these vital issues that we continue to struggle with today.

New technologies release a vast amount of information concerning diagnosis and treatment, which leads to physicians responding to clinical uncertainties by shifting responsibility for decisions to patients. While this can be empowering, it can also dump information and responsibility onto confused and frightened people. The chapter on "Health care information: access, confidentiality, and good practice" was excellent, as was the discussion on what being human is good for. "Medicine/nursing is not exclusively and clearly scientific, statistical, or procedural and hence, is not, so far, computationally tractable."

Computers dramatically improve our ability to calculate how things will turn out. They can help inform clinical or scientific decisions; they do not help solve problems related to ethics, values, and policy. This book reminds us that the "confidence that comes from having computers give us answers to scientific questions must be tempered with restraint shaped by those experiences in which we were so enthralled by the medium that we got the wrong message."