Integrating Healthcare Ethical Issues Into IS Education

1. INTRODUCTION From the 2009 American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA), about 20 percent ($19 billion) of the total funds were allocated to the health sector as only about 20 percent of physicians and 10 percent of hospitals had used basic electronic medical records (EHRs) and only about 6 percent of physicians and two percent of hospitals had used them comprehensively (Dentzer, 2010). One ARRA provision was the Health Information Technology for Economic and Clinical Health Act (HITECH), which called for an increase in IT professionals educated in adoption, implementation, and meaningful use of EHRs. The 2010 Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (ACA) is expected to increase access of U.S. residents to healthcare visits with providers. In preparation, the North Carolina Institute of Medicine (2011) reported that the State has been awarded over $10.4 million to expand the healthcare professional workforce, including provisions to focus on IS professionals working in the healthcare environment (NCIH, 2011). Thus, the HITECT Act (of ARRA) and ACA may bring about an expansion in EHRs as well as a surge in the number of patients, estimated at 23 million additional regular users (Harmon, 2010). Accompanying these changes is the importance of professionals (with IS and health IT competencies) on interdisciplinary healthcare teams that represent clinical, administration, and information systems areas. Healthcare has continued to experience an ever-burgeoning need for IS graduates, precisely because of the recent focus brought about from the aforementioned federal initiatives. Estimates indicate that from 2011-2016, the U.S. will experience a shortfall of about 50,000 qualified health IT workers (HITECT RegionD, 2011). IS graduates working on healthcare teams will have opportunities to make valuable contributions to the discussions of ethics in their healthcare organizations, alongside clinical healthcare professionals. For instance, using the Internet as the only method to publicize a healthcare organization's services has ethical implications. It is unjust to implement a strategy that disenfranchises many potential patients simply because they lack Internet access. IS professionals should have important roles in such discussions. The purpose of this paper is to present and discuss ways to integrate healthcare ethical issues within IS education. To this end, we first present the notion of mutual understanding in which IS educational programs may prepare their graduates by building their knowledge and skills in bioethics. Second, we discuss the professional code of ethics as an advance organizer for IS students as they consider ethical issues in healthcare. Last, we present an example to illustrate ethical dilemmas that IS professionals may meet as they work in healthcare. 2. MUTUAL UNDERSTANDING Building knowledge and skills in bioethics creates a mutual understanding between IS professionals and health practitioners in the classroom and in the work place. Both sets of professional have ethics in their educations. Prominent accrediting bodies for IS educational programs mandate ethics as a component of the curricula: * ABET, Inc. (accreditor for college and university programs in applied science, computing, engineering, and technology) requires that curricula result in graduates' having: ** An understanding of professional, ethic, legal, security and social issues and responsibilities (2011-2012 Criteria for Accrediting Computing Programs. Criterion 3. Student Outcomes) and ** An understanding of professional and ethical responsibility (2011-2012 Criteria for Accrediting Applied Science Programs. Criterion 3. Student Outcomes. Baccalaureate Programs) * AACSB International--The Association to Advance Collegiate Schools of Business requires that curricula include learning experiences in the ethical and legal responsibilities in organizations and society (Eligibility Procedures and Accreditation Standards for Business Accreditation. …