4-8 The Malaysian government is a major healthcare provider. The government plans to have 33 paperless public hospitals in Malaysia in the next few years. These paperless hospitals will be backed by information systems that will collect, process, and retrieve data. This will not only help to increase the operating efficiency of these hospitals but will also be environment-friendly. So far, the government has been successful in making two public hospitals paperless, and work to make 31 other hospitals paperless is in progress.

Although the government has formulated a code of conduct for doctors to be good practitioners, there is no code in place for information ethics. There is an urgent need to regulate the collection, storage, and communication of medical data and patient information to prevent misuse. What concerns might patients have? What can hospitals do to prevent misuse? Given the scenario outlined above, what do you think should be part of an ethical code of conduct for securing the sensitive information gathered by healthcare service providers? lop25