What are the pros and cons of medical privacy?

Answer 1

Benefits of a Medical Database

1. Some health care providers and insurance companies are forming regional information networks to share electronic medical records. Their reasoning for setting up these data banks is to help with the reduction of paperwork, help with billing, identify the most cost-effective treatment, and to fight against false claims.
2. A person's medical information would be immediately available for the attending doctor. Therefore if an individual was injured in another part of the country, the attending physicians would have the patient's entire medical history at their fingertips. Included in this information could be life saving information that would be invaluable to the attending doctor.
3. The creation of a large database would also allow researchers to track certain diseases as well as to patients' responses to certain drugs. This information could be valuable to drug companies for research purposes only.
4. The creation of these databases would allow for better organization and more legibility of medical files.
5. Since elaborate security systems can be developed to monitor these medical databases, electronic records may actually be more secure than paper records. Anyone can steal and/or fax a copy of a paper record without leaving a trace.

Some Disadvantages of a Medical Database

With the creation of Medical databases many individuals have expressed some apprehension as these and other information begin to become computerized:

1. One compliant is the fear that employers might have access to this information about their employees and then based on this information deny employment or job advancement.
2. Based on past medical information, people are fearful that they might be denied insurance because they are considered to be high risk.
3. There is a fear that digitizing records will allow many more people legitimate access to medical records. This information can easily be misused if it is accessed by so many individuals.