Information Technology Ethics

Question: Write an essay about the Smartphone usage and its impacts. Answer: Introduction This essay is based on the topic of Smartphone usage and its impacts. In order to get a better knowledge on this topic, a case study of Ethical issues in Nursing due to the use of Smartphone. During the discussion in the essay, at first the case study is described in detail. After that, the essay mentions about the stakeholders those are affected and those are not affected due to this issue. Next, the critical analysis is made on the selected issue on the basis of the different ethical theories. At the end of the study, the conclusion is derived by summarizing the findings. Usage of Smartphone and its impacts The scenario The recent studies on different hospitals in Australia have identified that there are 67% of the nursing homes in the country where the nurses and doctors use the Smartphone in order to exchange different information related to patients. The studies state that this is a vital ethical issue because there are high chances of security breaches and getting negative impact on the environments of the hospitals. The studies also identified that 88% of the hospitals in Australia are concerned about this issue and trying to take necessary steps to resolve the issue. The stakeholders: Serial Number Stakeholders 1 Patients 2 Community and family members of the patients 3 management 4 Doctors and Nurses 5 Government Ethical issues Serial Number Stakeholders 1 Sharing personal information of the patients through Smartphone, which may cause security issue 2 Sharing staffs personal information, which hamper the quality of nursing 3 All time using the Smartphone, which affect the environment of the hospitals negatively Non-Ethical issues Serial Number Stakeholders 1 Taking emergence call from the patients 2 Using Smartphone outside the hospitals Consequences Stakeholders Consequences Doctors and Nurses As per the case study, the doctors and nurses use the Smartphone at the time of working in the hospitals and in order to exchange information related to patients. Due to this many personal information of the patients get disclosed to the other people, which affect the security of the patients. At the same time, the environment gets affected in the hospitals (Jamwal Kumar, 2016). However, sometimes due to the use of Smartphone, the doctors and nurses get much important and urgent information in a few second and they can handle many difficult situation. Management of the hospitals The management of the hospitals has taken some steps or made some policies in order to reduce the use of Smartphone. Due to this, the doctors and nurses became conscious about the regular and over use of Smartphone for their personal purposes (Nason et al. 2015). However, they use the Smartphone in the emergence situation. Government The government of the country has made some policies in order to reduce the use of Smartphone in hospitals. Due to those policies, the management of the hospitals became aware of this issue and trying to solve the issue. Patients Patients are the stakeholders those are mostly affected through this issue. As the shared information is mostly about the patients, they face the main insecurity due to this (Park et al. 2015). On the other side, as the environment gets affected the health of the patients also gets affected. Ethical analysis The above-stated case study has mentioned that the doctors and nurses in the hospitals in Australia are using the Smartphone, which is affecting the ethical ground of the hospitals. However, how much their actions are ethical or unethical, that can be understood if the analysis is made on the basis of the Deontology theory of ethics. The Deontology theory of ethics suggests that the individual must hold on their duties and responsibilities at the time of analyzing the ethical dilemma. From the point of view of this particular theory, the use of Smartphone can be considered as unethical to some extent (Biology @ Davidson. 2016). However, Patel et al. (2015) stated that the Smartphone sometimes helps to handle the urgent situation and so the use of Smartphone cannot be consider as unethical. On the contrary Ringh et al. (2015) mentioned that it has been proved before that the mobile phones or Smartphone affects the natural environment from the negative side. Therefore, if the environment of the hospitals gets affected then it is obvious that the health of the patients will also be affected. Therefore, from the Deontology theory of ethics, the activities done by the doctors and nurses are not ethical. This is because the activities not only affect the health of the patients but affect the security of them also. Just Consequentialism The Consequentialism theory of ethics suggests that an action can be considered as ethical if it provides benefits to a large number of people (Patel et al. 2015). In case of the activities mentioned above, it cannot be said that those activities are beneficial for the people. In some situations the use of Smartphone is good. However, in most of the situation it affects the security and health of the patients and the other people from the negative side (Wiseman et al. 2015). Therefore, no one of the actions mentioned above is ethical from the point of view of Consequentialism theory of ethics Options Serial number Suggestions 1 The doctors and nurses must use the Smartphone only on emergence basis 2 The management must implement strict rule regarding the use of Smartphone and must monitor the issue on regular basis 3 The management of the hospitals must arrange for some meetings in order to inform the doctors and nurses regarding the ethical issues faced by the organization 4 The hospitals may keep a different place where the doctors and nurses can talk over Smartphone or mobile phone 5 The management of the hospitals must provide strict restriction over the exchange of the information related to the patients outside the hospital Conclusion In the above section, it has been identified that there are some ways by which the current issue of using Smartphone in hospitals can be reduced. If the management of the hospitals takes strict policies and rules regarding the use of Smartphone and sharing the patients information, then it can be expected that the issue will be solved. Reference List Biology @ Davidson. (2016). Bio.davidson.edu. Retrieved 17 May 2016, Jamwal, N. R., Kumar, S. P. (2016). Smarter palliative care for cancer: Use of smartphone applications.Indian Journal of Palliative Care,22(1), 108. Nason, G. J., Burke, M. J., Aslam, A., Kelly, M. E., Akram, C. M., Giri, S. K., Flood, H. D. (2015). The use of smartphone applications by urology trainees.the surgeon,13(5), 263-266. Park, Y. R., Lee, Y., Lee, G., Lee, J. H., Shin, S. Y. (2015). Smartphone Applications with Sensors Used in a Tertiary HospitalCurrent Status and Future Challenges.Sensors,15(5), 9854-9869. Patel, R. K., Sayers, A. E., Patrick, N. L., Hughes, K., Armitage, J., Hunter, I. A. (2015). A UK perspective on smartphone use amongst doctors within the surgical profession.Annals of Medicine and Surgery,4(2), 107-112. Ringh, M., Rosenqvist, M., Hollenberg, J., Jonsson, M., Fredman, D., Nordberg, P., ... Svensson, L. (2015). Mobile-phone dispatch of laypersons for CPR in out-of-hospital cardiac arrest.New England Journal of Medicine,372(24), 2316-2325. Wiseman, J. T., Fernandes-Taylor, S., Barnes, M. L., Tomsejova, A., Saunders, R. S., Kent, K. C. (2015). Conceptualizing smartphone use in outpatient wound assessment: patients' and caregivers' willingness to use technology.Journal of Surgical Research,198(1), 245-251.