Bank On It

February 25, 2010

In the early days of bioethics, the dominant paradigm was about finding ways to slow down the application and use of emerging technologies. While some still tenaciously cling to this paradigm, the ethics of information technologies applied to biobanks and electronic health records, or EHRs, is producing a major shift in thinking. There may in fact be a bioethical imperative to incorporate EHRs into medical practice, as they improve the quality of care delivered and allow for the organization of information that can allow epidemiologists and other researchers to understand critical patterns in public health. (Science Progress)