The Ethical Implications of Personal Health Monitoring

Abstract

Personal Health Monitoring (PHM) uses electronic devices which monitor and record health

Designing the Health-related Internet of Things: Ethical Principles and Guidelines

“…At its best, H-IoT will help improve a user's health by generating data about the user's health and providing monitoring of conditions to supplement other forms of medical and social care. User's safety can, however, be placed at risk if H-IoT results in poorer quality of care, for instance if used as a replacement for human care [2]. In practice, this principle would require that H-IoT data to be used to inform the care of individual users and the advancement of medical knowledge and techniques.…”

“…A risk exists of using H-IoT with elderly users as a proxy for human care, or to shift care burdens from formal medical and social care institutions to the community and informal carers [2]. For the former, devices can be designed to periodically remind third party carers to visit the user in person to avoid social isolation.…”

“…The health-related Internet of Things (H-IoT) increasingly plays a key role in health management by providing real-time tele-monitoring of patients, testing of treatments, actuation of medical devices (e.g., medication dispensation), fitness and well-being monitoring, patient and carer alerts, among other applications [1]. Physiological parameters (e.g., heart rate, respiration, blood oxygen saturation, skin temperature, blood glucose, and blood chemistry) can be collected alongside behavioural parameters linked to health and well-being [2]. The health and behaviours of users can increasingly be digitised, recorded, stored and analysed, creating novel opportunities for clinical care and research [3,4].…”

Ethics of the health-related internet of things: a narrative review

“…The ethical acceptability of the latter solution must, however, be questioned, as it violates the norm that H-IoT should only be used as needed, based on the particular situation of an individual (Mittelstadt et al 2014) "monitoring for monitoring's sake" (Bowes et al 2012), or pursuing monitoring as an end in itself (Coughlin et al 2007;McLean 2011) is to be avoided.…”

“…H-IoT can limit assessment of a patient's condition to a narrow range of easily measurable or quantifiable considerations, which could bias assessment towards an overly optimistic prediction of the technology's effects (Mittelstadt et al 2014;Coeckelbergh 2013). Conditions can increasingly be modelled and monitored through data, supplementing or replacing verbal accounts and physical care (cf.…”