Ethics in Information

Technology, Fourth Edition

Chapter 8
The Impact of Information Technology on
Productivity and Quality of Life
 Objectives

• As you read this chapter, consider the following

questions:
– What impact has IT had on the standard of living and
worker productivity?
– What is being done to reduce the negative influence
of the digital divide?
– What impact can IT have on improving the quality of
healthcare and reducing its costs?

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 Objectives (cont’d.)

• What ethical issues are raised because some

entities can afford to make significant investments
in IT while others cannot and thus are blocked in
their efforts to raise productivity and quality?

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 The Impact of IT on the Standard of
Living and Worker Productivity
• Gross domestic product (GDP)
– Measurement of the material standard of living
– Equals total annual output of a nation’s economy
• Standard of living in U.S. and developed
countries
– Has improved for a long time
– Rate of change varies as a result of business cycles
• Productivity
– Is the amount of output produced per unit of input
– It is measured in many different ways
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 The Impact of IT on the Standard of
Living and Worker Productivity
(cont’d.)
• United States
– Labor productivity growth 2% annually
– Living standards have doubled about every 36 years
– Modern management techniques and automated
technology increase productivity
• Innovation
– Key factor in productivity improvement
– IT has an important role in enabling innovation.

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 IT Investment and Productivity

• Relationship between IT investment and

productivity growth is complex because :
➢ It is difficult to quantify how much the use of IT
has contributed to worker productivity
➢ Other factors besides IT influence worker
productivity rates

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 IT Investment and Productivity
(cont’d.)
• Factors that affect national productivity rates
– Business cycles of expansion and contraction
– Outsourcing to contractors can skew productivity
– Regulations make it easier to hire and fire workers
– More competitive markets for goods and services
– Difficult to measure output of some services
– IT investments don’t always yield tangible results

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 IT Investment and Productivity
(cont’d.)

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 IT Investment and Productivity
(cont’d.)
• Telework/Telecommuting
– An employee works away from the office
– Advances in technology enable communications (access the
Internet all kinds of devices to retrieve computer files; log on to
software applications; access corporate databases; and
communicate with fellow employees, managers, customers,
and suppliers)

– Highly skilled workers demand more flexibility

– States have passed laws to encourage telework
– Organizations must prepare guidelines and policies
– Some positions, such as managers, are not suited to telework
– Some individuals are not suited to be teleworkers
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 Advantages/disadvantages of teleworking for
employees

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 Advantages/disadvantages of teleworking for
Organizations

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 The Digital Divide

• Standard of living
– Level of material comfort measured by the goods,
services, and luxuries available
• Digital divide
– Is a term used to describe the gulf between people
who do and people who don’t have access to:
• Cell phones
• Personal computers
• The Internet
– Gulf among age groups, economic classes, and
cities/rural areas
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 The Digital Divide (cont’d.)

• Digital divide must be bridged to improve resolution

of:
– Health emergencies
– Crime emergencies
– Other emergencies
• Access to IT and communications technology:
– Enhances learning
– Provides educational and economic opportunities
– Influences cultural, social, and political conditions

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 The Digital Divide (cont’d.)
• Education Rate (E-Rate) program
– Created by the Telecommunications Act of 1996
– The goal to help schools and libraries :
• Obtain access to Internet services
• To advance the availability of educational and
informational resources
• Provides discounted rates
– Supported with up to $2.25 billion per year from fees
charged to telephone customers
– Administered by the Universal Service Administrative
Company (USAC)

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 The Digital Divide (cont’d.)
To Bridge digital divide:
[Link]-cost computers for developing countries
– One Laptop per Child (OLPC)
• Is a non-profit organization
• There goal is to provides children around the world with low-
cost laptop computers for education
– Examples of low-cost computers:
➢ Classmate PC from Intel
➢ Eee notebook from Asus
[Link] phone
– Is an important first step in bridging the digital divide in many
countries
– Costs less than PC and more broadly available
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 The Impact of IT on Healthcare Costs
• Rapidly rising cost of healthcare is major challenge
– Spending is increasing at 6.3% per year
– Grow from $2.6 trillion to $4.6 trillion by 2019
• Increase (above inflation) due to new medical
technology
– Such as: technologies used in diagnostic procedures and
treatments
– Also, patients sometimes overuse medical resources
• To gain control over healthcare costs:
1. Patient awareness must be raised
2. Technology costs must be managed carefully
• Improved use of IT can lead to cost reductions
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 Electronic Health Records

• Electronic health record (EHR)

– Computer readable record of health-related
information on an individual: patient demographics,
medical history, family history, immunization records,
lab data, health problems, progress notes,
medications, vital signs, and radiology reports
– Data in an EHR can then be easily accessed by
other healthcare professionals
– Effective use of EHR improves patient care and
reduces costs

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 Electronic Health Records (cont’d.)

• Lack of patient data transparency results in:

– Diagnostic and medication errors
– Ordering of duplicate tests
– Compromise of patient safety

– At least 98,000 people die in hospitals each year

due to preventable medical mistakes

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 Electronic Health Records (cont’d)
• Health Information Technology for Economic and
Clinical Health Act (HITECH)
– HITECH is intended to increase the use of health
information technology by:
1. Requiring government to develop standards for nationwide
exchange and use of health information
2. Providing $20 billion in incentives to encourage doctors and
hospitals to use EHR to electronically exchange patient
healthcare data
3. Saving $10 billion through improvements in quality of care
4. Strengthening protection of identifiable health information

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 Use of Mobile and Wireless
Technology in the Healthcare Industry
• Healthcare industry is a leader in adopting mobile
and wireless technology
– Use of wireless technology in healthcare includes:
1. Means to access and update EHR at bedsides
2. Scan barcodes to match patient with medications
3. Communicate with healthcare employees

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 Telemedicine

• Employs modern telecommunications and

information technologies to support at-a-distance
health care
• Provides medical care to people who live far away
from healthcare providers
• This technology reduces the need for patients to
travel for treatment
• Also, allows healthcare professionals to serve more
patients in a broader geographic area

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 Telemedicine (cont’d.)
Forms of telemedicine:
[Link]-and-Forward Telemedicine:
– Acquires data, sound, images, and video from
patient and transmits to medical specialist for
evaluation at a later time
– Does not require presence of patient
[Link] Telemedicine:
– Requires the presence of patient and healthcare
provider at the same time
– Involves a video conference link between the two
sites

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 Telemedicine (cont’d.)
• Use of telemedicine raises new ethical issues:
– Must physicians providing advice to patients at
remote location be licensed at that location?
– Must healthcare system be required to possess a
license from a state in which it has a virtual facility?
– Must minimum set of technology standards be met?
– What sort of system certification and verification is
necessary?
– Does patient involvement with remote doctors have
negative impact on the local doctor’s relationship?

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 Medical Information Web Sites for
Laypeople
• People need reliable information on a wide range of medical
topics to:
– Learn more about healthcare services
– Take more responsibility for their health
• A tremendous amount of healthcare information is available
via the Web ( web-based health information) .
• Web sites are not substitutes for professional medical
advice, diagnosis, or treatment
• These sites have a critical responsibility to publish current,
reliable, and objective information
• In addition to publicly available information on the Web,
some healthcare providers and employers offer online tools
that go beyond basic health information
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 Summary

• Gross national product (GNP) measures material

standard of living
• Progressive management uses IT to innovate
products, processes, and services
• Telework opportunities can be used to:
– Reduce costs
– Increase productivity
– Reduce organization’s carbon footprint
– Prepare for potential local or widespread disasters

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 Summary (cont’d.)

• The digital divide exists:

– Between more and less developed countries
– Within countries, among:
• Age groups
• Economic classes
• People who live in cities versus those in rural areas
• New information technologies can be used with
little capital cost to reduce the digital divide

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 Summary (cont’d.)

• Healthcare costs are soaring out of control

– 6.3% annual growth rate
– Will reach $4.6 trillion by 2019
• Improved use of IT in the healthcare industry can
lead to significantly reduced costs
– Electronic health records (EHRs)
– Telemedicine
– Web-based health information

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