You have likely received one or more “data usage†e-mail or web notices from credit card companies, banks, or other organizations. The purpose of this notice is to inform you of some changes in the way that the organization manages and uses your customer data. Many of these notices read like legal documents, and while no one wants their data to be misused, the tendency is for consumers to scroll and accept the terms with a mouse click.
Depending on their condition during care, patients may sometimes be even less engaged with the policies in place regarding their data. They certainly do not want their data to be misused, as healthcare data can be personal (related to treatment) and/or subject to theft (related to finances).
Healthcare organizations are ever mindful of regulations regarding appropriate use. But there can be a conflict between the need to protect data and the potential benefit of its use. This conflict can raise issues of ethics.
In this Discussion, you consider the ethical questions that should be addressed when applying data warehousing, big data, and data mining in health care practice. You also propose approaches to best addressing these types of questions in healthcare settings.
To prepare:
Reflect on ethical questions that may arise from the use of data warehousing, big data, and data mining in health care practice.
Post a description of any reservations that you have or ethical issues you foresee in using data mining and information sharing to provide healthcare information. What approaches and strategies could be used to address those concerns and why? Justify your responses.
Data Mining and Ethics
Data mining entails analyzing large sets of data to identify trends and patterns. Data collected in healthcare processes flows into the data warehouse for analysis (Ienca et al., 2018). Although data warehousing and mining can help improve healthcare processes, there are several ethical issues that may present. One of most significant ethical challenges is that patients may not be aware that healthcare information is being collected or may not be informed about how the information will be used. Therefore, they may not get the opportunity to provide consent for the collection and use of this information (Holen-Rabbersvik et al., 2018). Another ethical challenge is that data warehousing and mining compromise the privacy of healthcare information. Healthcare professionals are required to protect patient information from access by unauthorized people. However, once healthcare information is collected and used for data mining, it becomes difficult to protect the privacy of this information. Data warehousing and mining are also prone to insecurity. Malicious intrusions that include attacks on the databases, servers, and networks of healthcare organizations may easily lead to lose of data (Kariotis & Harris, 2019).
The concerns can be addressed by implementing techniques such as privacy protected data mining which allow information to be extracted from data sets without disclosing sensitive information or the identity of the data subjects. Healthcare organizations should always inform patients about the possibility of healthcare data being collected and used for data mining and that adequate measures will be taken to protect their identity. The security of health data can be ensured using multi-layered security systems because they are more effective than using passwords and antiviruses only. Access controls that only allow selective identities to access databases should be implemented to limit access by unauthorized people (Ienca et al., 2018).
Holen-Rabbersvik, E., Thygesen, E., Eikebrokk, T. R., Fensli, R. W., & Slettebø, Å. (2018). Barriers to exchanging healthcare information in inter-municipal healthcare services: A qualitative case study. BMC Medical Informatics and Decision Making, 18(1). https://doi.org/10.1186/s12911-018-0701-z
Ienca, M., Ferretti, A., Hurst, S., Puhan, M., Lovis, C., & Vayena, E. (2018). Considerations for Ethics Review of Big Data Health Research: A scoping review. PLOS ONE, 13(10). https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0204937
Kariotis, T. C., & Harris, K. M. (2019). Clinician perceptions of my health record in Mental Health Care: Medication Management and sharing mental health information. Australian Journal of Primary Health, 25(1), 66–71. https://doi.org/10.1071/py17181