Ethical, Legal, and Social Issues in Medical Informatics is an essential publication for researchers in medical and health informatics and should therefore be included in the collections of academic libraries, medical libraries and research libraries in health and medical contexts. It is also important where healthcare is studied from the perspectives of information science and computer science, as well as the other disciplines represented by the international team of contributors: medicine, law, philosophy and the social sciences. According to the publisher, technology specialists, hospital administrators and healthcare professionals will find the content valuable in an ever‐changing society. Considering the scope of the themes offered, I can only agree with this.
The book is divided into six main themes or sections, each with a number of chapters. These include: The Internet and Health Care; Trust, Values and Healthcare Information Systems; Responsibility and Healthcare Information Systems; Quality Management in Healthcare Information Systems; Privacy and Data Protection Issues Regarding Electronic Healthcare Information; and Emerging Technologies. In these themes among the topics covered are online medical consultations, applied ethics and ICT systems, trust and clinical information systems, values of an electronic social record, medical decision support systems, responsibility in e‐health, compliance and creativity in grid computing, clinical safety and quality management, the impact of information technology in healthcare privacy, compiling medical data into a national medical database, biometrics and the human body and medicine, as well as prospects for thought communication.
The importance of a publication such as this is clear from a statement by Diane Whitehouse in the foreword:
eHealth is a topic that lies at the crossroads of multiple disciplines, both hard and soft: including, on the one hand, engineering and computer science and, on the other, psychology and the social sciences. It can therefore be seen as an academic discipline, or rather, being at the crux of several academic disciplines, that underpin these activities and interests. These key specialisms are often reflected in the discourse outlined in the papers in this volume.
Ethical, Legal, and Social Issues in Medical Informatics raises awareness of a wide spectrum of important issues and offers valuable reports on research in progress, as well as stimulation for further research. It is therefore highly recommended to the indicated target audience. The only serious disappointment is the 2.5 page index for a book of 299 pages: it is really inadequate for the wealth of information covered in the book.
