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Clinical Decision Support Systems pp 131–146Cite as

Ethical and Legal Issues in Decision Support

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Part of the book series: Health Informatics ((HI))

Abstract

The use of computers to help humans make diagnoses and prognoses in the practice of medicine or nursing is an exciting and unsettling development in the evolution of clinical and hospital practice. Such use engenders ethical and legal challenges paralleling those challenges seen regularly to arise with the introduction of many new technologies in healthcare. In the case of computational decision support systems, the most salient ethical issues involve standards of care, appropriate uses and users and professional relationships. Balancing patient safety against opportunities to improve care constitutes a tension that mirrors the difficulty encountered in debates about whether and how the government should regulate decision support systems. At ground are questions of accountability, responsibility and liability. In most cases, we lack adequate empirical data to arrive at uncontroversial conclusions. In the context of an exciting new technology, the reduction of that ignorance itself becomes an ethical imperative.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Institute for Bioethics and Health Policy, University of Miami Miller School of Medicine, POB 016960 (M-825), Miami, FL, 33101, USA

    Kenneth W. Goodman Ph.D.

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  1. Kenneth W. Goodman Ph.D.
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Correspondence to Kenneth W. Goodman Ph.D. .

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Editors and Affiliations

  1. School of Health Professions, Department of Health Services Administration and Department of Medical Education, School of Medicine, University of Alabama at Birmingham , Birmingham, Alabama, USA

    Eta S. Berner

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© 2016 Springer International Publishing Switzerland

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Goodman, K.W. (2016). Ethical and Legal Issues in Decision Support. In: Berner, E. (eds) Clinical Decision Support Systems. Health Informatics. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-31913-1_8

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-31913-1_8

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  • Publisher Name: Springer, Cham

  • Print ISBN: 978-3-319-31911-7

  • Online ISBN: 978-3-319-31913-1

  • eBook Packages: MedicineMedicine (R0)

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