CHI Professional Ethics & Standards 2 — Questions and Answers
Question 1: A health informatician discovers a colleague is accessing patient records without clinical need. What is the MOST appropriate first action?
- Ignore it as an internal matter
- Report it to the privacy officer or compliance department (Correct answer)
- Confront the colleague publicly
- Delete the audit logs to protect the colleague
Correct answer: Report it to the privacy officer or compliance department
Reporting unauthorized access to the privacy officer upholds HIPAA obligations and professional ethics standards.
Question 2: Which ethical principle requires health informaticians to act in the best interest of patients rather than their own interests?
- Autonomy
- Justice
- Beneficence (Correct answer)
- Non-maleficence
Correct answer: Beneficence
Beneficence means acting in the best interest of patients and promoting their well-being.
Question 3: When a vendor offers gifts to influence a health informatician's software selection decision, this represents a conflict of:
- Professional development
- Interest (Correct answer)
- Jurisdiction
- Competence
Correct answer: Interest
Accepting gifts that could influence professional decisions creates a conflict of interest, which violates ethical standards.
Question 4: The AMIA Code of Ethics requires health informatics professionals to disclose which of the following when publishing research?
- Personal health history
- Financial relationships with industry (Correct answer)
- Employment history
- Educational background
Correct answer: Financial relationships with industry
Disclosing financial relationships with industry ensures transparency and prevents undisclosed conflicts of interest in research.
Question 5: A health informatician is asked to alter clinical data to support a favorable outcome in a malpractice case. This action would violate which principle?
- Justice
- Autonomy
- Data integrity (Correct answer)
- Resource allocation
Correct answer: Data integrity
Altering clinical data violates data integrity, a core professional ethics standard in health informatics.
Question 6: Under HIPAA's minimum necessary standard, health informaticians should limit data access to:
- All staff for convenience
- Only what is needed to perform a specific job function (Correct answer)
- Senior management only
- External auditors upon request
Correct answer: Only what is needed to perform a specific job function
The minimum necessary standard requires limiting PHI access to what is required for each user's specific job function.
Question 7: Which of the following best describes the ethical obligation of 'veracity' in health informatics practice?
- Keeping patient data secret
- Being truthful and transparent in communications (Correct answer)
- Distributing resources fairly
- Protecting patient autonomy
Correct answer: Being truthful and transparent in communications
Veracity obligates health informatics professionals to be truthful and honest in all professional communications and reporting.
CHI Professional Ethics & Standards 2
A health informatician discovers a colleague is accessing patient records without clinical need.
What is the MOST appropriate first action?