Seven pillars for ethics in digital diagnostic assistance among clinicians: Take-homes from a multi-stakeholder and multi-country workshop

摘要

Digital technologies can significantly speed up interventions addressing major global health issues, from malnutrition and sanitation to disease and injury. One field of application gaining interest is that of diagnostic assistance to clinicians, where the need in health care delivery globally and the potential for cost-saving are tremendous. Timely, accurate diagnosis is key in the reduction of unnecessary referrals, adequate utilization of resources, and better patient outcomes. Additional benefits of digital assistance are the reduction of professional isolation and better recruitment and retention of staff in remote areas. Medical fields explore these applications in myriad ways [ ]. Some modernize a procedure more-or-less in place by tradition (eg, dermatology and radiology), while others revolutionize their practice with the use of extra-laboratory microscopy assistance (eg,“lab-on-a-chip” for pathology or ophthalmology) or artificial intelligence to obtain highly accurate diagnosis (eg, oncology). The health sector has new and powerful means to enhance the readiness of services and to deal with conditions like infections (eg, malaria, tuberculosis, and HIV) or non-communicable diseases [ ].