Healthcare at Your Fingertips: The Professional Ethics of Smartphone Health-Monitoring Applications. Issue 8 (17th November 2017)

• Record Type: Journal Article
• Authors: Kwan, Vivian; Hagen, Gregory; Noel, Melanie; Dobson, Keith; Yeates, Keith
• Is Part Of: Ethics & behavior. Volume 27:Issue 8(2017)
• Page Start: 615
• Page End: 631
• Publication Date: 2017-11-17
• Subjects: consumer ethics -- decision making -- health care; Ethics -- Periodicals; 170.5
• DOI: 10.1080/10508422.2017.1285237
• Languages: English
• ISSNs: 1050-8422

Abstract

Abstract : Health professionals are inundated by the surfeit of health apps while lacking guidance to help them critically evaluate whether a particular health-monitoring app is safe, likely to lead to clinical benefit, and not introduce additional liability. Our objective is not to argue for or against the use of mobile health-monitoring apps but to illuminate the associated ethical issues and provide recommendations to guide the ethical decision-making process for clinicians who are considering the use of a mobile health-monitoring app. To this end, the Canadian Code of Ethics for Psychologists is used as a framework to situate recommendations.