Imagine that you are a member of the health professional information technology (IT) innovation council in a community hospital system. The council is exploring the use of smartphones as a support for recently discharged patients with chronic illnesses. Health care professionals will be readily available by phone for a patient if he or she has questions or concerns regarding treatments or medications. Consequently, the patient will not have to schedule office visits each time it is necessary to confer with a physician. With the patient's approval, this information could then be shared with all the members of the patient's health care team via the health care information system.

You are asked to investigate the potential of such a system and to present your findings to the council via a PowerPoint presentation. In your presentation, be sure to cover the following points:

• a brief description of how you believe the smartphone system will work,
• an explanation of why it is important to have the ability to share a patient's health information via a health care information system, and
• an explanation of the ethical considerations that will have to be addressed if a decision is made to trial the smartphone system and how these considerations will be addressed.