Implanting an Electronic Health Record Chip Into

IMPLANTING AN ELECTRONIC HEALTH RECORD CHIP INTO U.S. CITIZENS

The purpose assignment investigate safeguards apply ethical principles health care technology.

Imagine having all your medical records with you at all times, thus reducing the issues that arise of patient safety and identification when one visits a health facility. With the use of an Electronic Health Record (EHR), this would become a reality for every U.S. Citizen. The EHR is a collection of a patient's health information that is acquired over several visits to a health facility. It has all the patients' progress notes, medications, problems, laboratory data, past medical history and radiology reports. For this to be achieved, one would need to be implanted with a chip or a Radio Frequency Identification Device (RFID) that would contain their health information. When one visits a health facility, the health care providers would scan the chip and all the patient's health information would be uploaded into the hospital systems Taghaboni-Dutta & Velthouse, 2006.

EHR's are designed to share a patient's health information with other health providers securely, thus ensuring there is open communication and better involvement in regards to the patient.

The RFID chips are recommended for a select group people, they include person's with Alzheimer's disease as they may not recall their health details, people with diabetes this group is mostly in case they have an emergency so that the health providers can find out first hand of their health condition, people who have heart problems or have stents in their blood vessels, other people who already have medical chips implanted in them like defibrillators and people who require frequent medical attention.

The pros of implanting the chip

There are many emergency cases that occur, and the healthcare providers do not have information regarding the patients that are brought to the healthcare facilities during an emergency. With the use of the Electronic Health Record chips, the providers can gain access to the patient's health information records, and they would be able to notice any allergies that the patient has, and any medications prescribed to the patient Peslak, 2005()

The chips would hold vital information like whom the authorities should call when the patient has an emergency, this would save relatives the hurdle of searching for their loved ones if they are hospitalized without their knowledge. A patient's blood type is very important especially during an emergency as the healthcare providers would get this information direct from the EHR chip, blood transfusion can be commenced immediately if the patient has suffered from too much blood loss and there won't be any risk of blood group mismatch. Currently the chip contains only an identification number which is what is used when accessing the person's personal information that is stored in a separate database, this makes the chip very secure as only authorized person's would have access to the database.

The cons of implanting the chip

Placement of the chip in a person's body is not standard, and this make it hard for a person with the scanner to know where exactly to scan so as that they can read the chips data Nisbet, 2004.

There are privacy concerns with the use of the device as someone can use unauthorized scanners to access the person unique 16-digit number, and use the information to send the person unwanted information (spam). The chips can also be used to monitor a person's location and their movements by using a Global Positioning satellite (G.P.S.). Experts say the current chips are not capable of supporting the tracking feature because the chips been used are the dormant kind, and they only become active once a specific scanner passes within 6 inches of the chip Levi & Wall, 2004()

There are some potential complications that might arise once the chip is implanted in to a person like the chip might not work, it might be incompatible with MRI (Magnetic Resonance Imaging), electrical hazards, the chip might move from the location it was implanted and a person may have some adverse tissue reactions Haifley & Hecht, 2012()