CHI Professional Ethics & Standards 3 — Questions and Answers
Question 1: A hospital's EHR vendor requests detailed patient demographic data for 'product improvement.' Without a BAA, sharing this data would violate:
- State licensing laws
- HIPAA Privacy Rule (Correct answer)
- Joint Commission standards
- Meaningful Use criteria
Correct answer: HIPAA Privacy Rule
Sharing PHI with a vendor without a signed Business Associate Agreement violates the HIPAA Privacy Rule.
Question 2: The principle of justice in health informatics ethics most directly applies to which scenario?
- Keeping patient records confidential
- Ensuring equitable access to health information systems across populations (Correct answer)
- Obtaining informed consent for data use
- Accurately representing one's credentials
Correct answer: Ensuring equitable access to health information systems across populations
Justice requires fair and equitable distribution of benefits and resources, including access to health information systems.
Question 3: A health informatician overhears a conversation revealing a colleague is fabricating usability study results. The MOST ethical response is to:
- Stay silent to avoid workplace conflict
- Report the misconduct to a supervisor or ethics committee (Correct answer)
- Publish a competing study
- Discuss it informally with peers
Correct answer: Report the misconduct to a supervisor or ethics committee
Research misconduct must be reported to appropriate authorities to uphold the integrity of health informatics science.
Question 4: Which standard-setting body publishes the Code of Ethics most relevant to AHIMA members practicing health informatics?
- AMIA
- HIMSS
- AHIMA (Correct answer)
- IHE
Correct answer: AHIMA
AHIMA publishes its own Code of Ethics guiding health information management and informatics professionals who hold its credentials.
Question 5: In the context of clinical decision support, which ethical concern arises when algorithms produce biased recommendations that disadvantage minority populations?
- Autonomy violation
- Algorithmic bias and justice (Correct answer)
- Lack of informed consent
- Non-maleficence only
Correct answer: Algorithmic bias and justice
Biased algorithms that disadvantage minority groups raise algorithmic bias concerns, which is a justice and equity ethics issue.
Question 6: A health informatician is asked to implement a system that tracks employee health behaviors without their knowledge. This most directly violates:
- System interoperability standards
- Employee autonomy and privacy rights (Correct answer)
- Coding compliance rules
- Disaster recovery planning
Correct answer: Employee autonomy and privacy rights
Covert surveillance of employee health behaviors violates their autonomy and privacy rights, core ethical standards in health informatics.
Question 7: When a health informatician accepts a consulting role with a competing firm while employed, they must first:
- Notify the IRS
- Disclose the conflict and seek employer approval per ethics policy (Correct answer)
- Resign from current employment
- File a HIPAA waiver
Correct answer: Disclose the conflict and seek employer approval per ethics policy
Ethics standards require disclosing potential conflicts of interest and obtaining organizational approval before accepting outside roles.
CHI Professional Ethics & Standards 3
A hospital's EHR vendor requests detailed patient demographic data for 'product improvement.' Without a BAA, sharing this data would violate: