The ethics of telemedicine

Overview

Telemedicine is by no means new, but technological advances and sophisticated artificial intelligence tools have given it a new impetus in recent years. In this paper I focus on the ethical reflection of telemedicine. Firstly, I define telemedicine and identify its main modalities. The next part of this paper is a macroethical analysis of telemedicine based on five ethical principles. I then present an ethical theory that is based on classical principlism but differs from it in specific essential details. It retains, however, all four principles of medical ethics – the principle of beneficence, the principle of non-maleficence, the principle of respect for autonomy and the principle of fairness. In the next section I apply this theory to an ethical analysis of telemedicine and finally I provide some specific moral norms that should guide it. Telemedicine does not raise any new or fundamental ethical issues, while at the same time, we emphasize that the potential risks of telemedicine should not be seen as obstacles to its use, but rather as opportunities to ensure its ethically correct use in medical practice.

Keywords:

Telemedicine – ethics – principlism – welfare