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.

中文翻译：

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电子精神卫生专业人员的数据处理

在当前的精神卫生保健领域，数字精神病学和电子精神卫生已经大量扩散和渗透。COVID-19危机加速了这种数字化转型，通常需要花费数年时间才能将其转化为临床实践的变革已在几周内完成。这些已经超过了通常伴随此类更改的制衡，这已经引起了对采用适当的数字数据处理方法的关注。卫生保健数据很敏感，并且由于缺乏有关其存储和访问的严格协议，因此容易遭到黑客攻击。由于与精神健康状况相关的污名，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的正确数据处理，需要制定确保患者隐私的政策。为了临床，商业和研究目的而有用，免费和公平地使用精神卫生保健数据的目标应与确保只有授权的人才能访问该数据的需求相平衡。应制定系统和政策以确保数据的存储，访问和处置是系统的并符合数据安全规范。