Author: Courtney Eiland
Publisher: Noodle
Publication Year: 2022
Summary: The following article discusses the importance of bioethics for healthcare professionals. The author begins by highlighting laws pertaining to patient privacy, such as the Privacy Act of 1974 and the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996. The former includes 3 provisions for patients: 1). The right to request access to their records, 2). The right to make amendments to ensure accuracy, and 3). The right to protection from unwarranted invasions of privacy, and the latter “strengthened privacy protections to prevent the sharing of patient information without knowledge or consent.” Likewise, the author highlights the need for transparency in healthcare. For instance, transparency is vital when a physician learns of an effective treatment for all of his/her patients based on data recorded from a single patient. Lastly, the author encourages the reader to mitigate bias in the collection and use of healthcare data by collecting information on many different types of patients–not just those who are white. Doing so will better train the models to be accurate on a wide array of individuals.