Transcript Circle Housing Telehealth and telecare scoping project

The Ethics of Telehealth and
Telecare – Unit M3
Dr Paul Rice
David 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
What do we mean by ethics?
• 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
Ethical principles
Beneficence
Nonmaleficence
Justice
Autonomy
Beauchamp T L, Childress J F (2008) Principles of Biomedical Ethics, 6th ed.
Oxford, Oxford University Press
M3/2
Ethical principles and telehealth
• 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?
M3/3
‘Real world’ ethical concerns
Reduced human
contact
Dependence
on technology
M3/4
‘Big Brother’
Ethical benefits
Enhanced self-care
and independence
Fairer
distribution of
resource
M3/5
Clinical
benefit
Supporting ethical practice in telehealth
Privacy and dignity
Informed consent
Holistic assessment
M3/6
Robust governance
Guidance on ethics in telehealth
M3/7