Introduction
Technological advancements have revolutionized the administration of healthcare services. Hospitals have integrated technology to automate and digitize their routine activities. The use of AI is the hallmark in medicine since complex medical activities can be conducted with ease. However, ethical issues arise in the use of AI in decision-making support in a healthcare environment. The various AI systems utilize patients’ data without their consent and expose their private information. Although AI systems are beneficial, they are associated with various ethical concerns that must be addressed when in use.
Ethical Concerns in the Use of AI in Healthcare
Complex and digitized healthcare systems help human beings treat and identify complicated diseases. However, the processes are associated with activities that are contrary to the principles of natural justice. Medical researchers utilize AI systems to gather data such as age, and level of disease seriousness, among others from patients (Kumar et al., 2022). Although the data collected helps save humanity, consent and data privacy are of significant concern (Price & Cohen, 2019). Consent involves a voluntary agreement to the proposal and desires of another person. Many AI systems in the healthcare environment utilize patients’ data and information without their full consent.
Like any other human being, patients deserve privacy in their information. The AI systems use information such as age and diseases suffered to devise treatment mechanisms for other patients. While such information deserves privacy, many systems utilize it without patients’ consent (Price & Cohen, 2019). Additionally, the AI-enabled treatment systems inflict pain on patients violating the ethical principle of non-maleficence. For instance, the chemotherapy systems do not converse with the cancer patients directly to understand their extent of pain. Meanwhile, the human doctors can sympathize with their patients, avoiding treatments that are painful (Makanjee, 2021).Therefore, AI-enabled systems cannot be trusted when treating patients and helping solve complex medical issues. Therefore, the AI systems in healthcare should be used with human intervention to avoid ethical issues associated with them.
Conclusion
Integration of AI in medicine has helped solve complicated healthcare issues. Patients benefit from the medical research and treatment done by the AI systems. However, research data may be collected without patients’ consent, violating their privacy. Moreover, the AI systems may violate the principle of non-maleficence since they lack human feel. Although AI systems have revolutionized the administration of healthcare services, they cannot be trusted, and are instead used under human control.
References
Kumar, Y., Koul, A., Singla, R., & Ijaz, M. F. (2022). Artificial intelligence in disease diagnosis: a systematic literature review, synthesizing framework and future research agenda. Journal of Ambient Intelligence and Humanized Computing, 1-28. Web.
Makanjee, C. R. (2021). Diagnostic medical imaging services with myriads of ethical dilemmas in a contemporary healthcare context: is artificial intelligence the solution? In Medical Imaging Methods, 1-44. CRC Press.
Price, W. N., & Cohen, I. G. (2019). Privacy in the age of medical big data. Nature medicine, 25(1), 37-43. Web.