The use of information technology for information management in healthcare is fundamentally about facilitating the holding of much more comprehensive data on people throughout the health system. More comprehensive health information obviously creates the potential for greatly improved health-care. At the same time, however, it raises concerns about the amount of information about individuals flowing through the system. This information has the potential not only to benefit the community but also to be used in ways which are discriminatory or otherwise harmful. This paper argues that if the potential of information technology to benefit information management in health-care is to be realized, there must be a shift in the culture of the health sector, to one which has a far greater emphasis on consumer privacy than is presently evident.
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