Grover Sandeep, Sarkar Siddharth, Gupta Rahul
Dept. of Psychiatry, Postgraduate Institute of Medical Education and Research, Chandigarh, India.
Dept. of Psychiatry, All India Institute of Medical Sciences, New Delhi, India.
Indian J Psychol Med. 2020 Oct 8;42(5 Suppl):85S-91S. doi: 10.1177/0253717620956732. eCollection 2020 Oct.
Digital psychiatry and e-mental health have proliferated and permeated vastly in the current landscape of mental health care provision. The COVID-19 crisis has accelerated this digital transformation, and changes that usually take many years to translate into clinical practice have been implemented in a matter of weeks. These have outpaced the checks and balances that would typically accompany such changes, which has brought into focus a need to have a proper approach for digital data handling. Health care data is sensitive, and is prone to hacking due to the lack of stringent protocols regarding its storage and access. Mental health care data need to be more secure due to the stigma associated with having a mental health condition. Thus, there is a need to emphasize proper data handling by mental health professionals, and policies to ensure safeguarding patient's privacy are required. The aim of useful, free, and fair use of mental health care data for clinical, business, and research purposes should be balanced with the need to ensure the data is accessible to only those who are authorized. Systems and policies should be in place to ensure that data storage, access, and disposal are systematic and conform to data safety norms.
数字精神病学和电子心理健康在当前的精神卫生保健服务领域中迅速发展并广泛渗透。新冠疫情危机加速了这一数字化转型，那些通常需要数年时间才能转化为临床实践的变革在短短几周内就得以实施。这些变革的速度超过了此类变化通常应有的制衡机制，这使得有必要采用一种恰当的数字数据处理方法成为焦点。医疗保健数据很敏感，由于缺乏关于其存储和访问的严格协议，容易受到黑客攻击。由于与精神健康状况相关的污名化问题，精神卫生保健数据需要更加安全。因此，有必要强调精神卫生专业人员进行恰当的数据处理，并且需要制定政策以确保保护患者隐私。将精神卫生保健数据用于临床、商业和研究目的时，实现有用、免费和公平使用的目标应与确保数据仅对授权人员可用的需求相平衡。应建立系统和政策，以确保数据存储、访问和处置是系统的，并符合数据安全规范。
