Medical Information Systems Ethics

3Uses of this Ethical Model

3.1. Implementing the ethical model

In the context of our study, we took inspiration from models proposed by Beauchamp and Childress [BEA 01], Massé [MAS 03], Vézina [VÉZ 06] as well as the ethical analysis space that we created so as to build our own model and theoretical framework based on the four universal ethical principles.

For this reason, an analysis of the production and use of a healthcare IS by investigating specific and concrete areas is necessary. They represent “real justifications,” veritable keys to interpret reality, characterized by various sectors such as technology, organization, politics, behavior and ethics. Note that these justifications were built from a literature review on the subject as well as from semi-structured interviews with managers, designers and users of IS, as well as with individuals known to be “experts” on the topic.

To all these ethical principles were associated values that these justifications reference. The values implicate all that is subjected to either a supportive or a rejecting attitude, or a critical judgment, by an individual or a group of individuals and that results in conscious or subconscious attitudes, behaviors or stances. For this reason, all contemporary writers of medical ethics insist on the personal values of actors as standards used to approach and understand individual behaviors.

Nonetheless, we can see that healthcare professionals also refer to other systems of values than their own, ...