The Ethics of Telehealth and Telecare – Unit M3

Dr Paul RiceDavid Barrett

Learning outcomes

• By the end of the session, you will be able to;– Relate ethical principles to the implementation of

telehealth– Discuss practical solutions to addressing ethical

issues in telehealth deployments

C1/1

• At the broadest level, ethics is the study of people’s moral behaviour (e.g. Good/evil; right/wrong)

• That may sound rather abstract, but the aspiration to act ‘ethically’ should underpin everything we do

• To start, we’ll discuss some broad ethical principles and healthcare issues, before looking in more detail at telehealth and telecare

M3/1

What do we mean by ethics?

Ethical principles

M3/2Beauchamp T L, Childress J F (2008) Principles of Biomedical Ethics, 6th ed. Oxford, Oxford University Press

• For the ethical principle that your group has been allocated, think about a possible circumstance where telehealth– Supports that principle– Challenges that principle

• Where there are ethical challenges, how can users and carers be safeguarded against them?

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Ethical principles and telehealth

‘Real world’ ethical concerns

M3/4

‘Big Brother’Reduced human contact

Dependence on technology

Ethical benefits

M3/5

Clinical benefit

Enhanced self-care and independence

Fairer distribution of

resource

Supporting ethical practice in telehealth

M3/6

Holistic assessment

Informed consent

Privacy and dignity

Robust governance

M3/7

Guidance on ethics in telehealth