An Ethically Mindful Approach to AI for Health Care

Abstract

Health-care systems worldwide face increasing demand, a rise in chronic disease, and resource constraints. At the same time, the use of digital health technologies in all care settings has led to an expansion of data. For this reason, policy makers, politicians, clinical entrepreneurs, and computer and data scientists argue that a key part of health-care solutions will be artificial Intelligence (AI), particularly machine learning AI forms a key part of the National Health Service (NHS) Long-Term Plan (2019) in England, the US National Institutes of Health Strategic Plan for Data Science (2018), and China’s Healthy China 2030 strategy (2016). The willingness to embrace the potential future of medical care, expressed in these national strategies, is a positive development. Health-care providers should, however, be mindful of the risks that arise from AI’s ability to change the intrinsic nature of how health care is delivered. This paper outlines and discusses these potential risks.

Keywords: Artificial intelligence, Ethics, Health policies