A Lower Saxony-Israel research project led by University Medical Center Göttingen (UMG) is investigating the impact of increased digitalisation on day-to-day medical care. In particular, the project aims to examine ethical challenges associated with the use of digital applications such as electronic health records and artificial intelligence in Germany and Israel. The project is funded by the Lower Saxony Ministry of Science and Culture and the Volkswagen Foundation with more than €520,000 over four years.
Digitalisation is increasingly transforming the healthcare sector. Applications such as electronic patient records, artificial intelligence, apps and chatbots that simulate human conversation and answer user queries are on the rise. New digital health guidelines aim to establish an ethical framework to balance opportunities and risks. How digitalisation specifically affects the day-to-day work of healthcare staff or patients, and what problems may arise as a result, remains largely unknown.
In an international collaborative project led by Prof. Dr Silke Schicktanz, Director of the Institute for Ethics and History of Medicine at University Medical Center Göttingen (UMG), in collaboration with Leibniz University Hannover and Ben-Gurion University of the Negev in Israel, the researchers are jointly investigating how the new digital applications are regulated legally and ethically, and how these guidelines are assessed by stakeholders from the healthcare sector, politics and the general public in Germany and Israel. The project “Ethical Challenges of Digital Healthcare: Views of Stakeholders and the Public in Germany and Israel” is funded by the Lower Saxony Ministry of Science and Culture and the Volkswagen Foundation with more than €520,000 over four years.
“The use of AI, apps and chatbots in medicine is advancing rapidly in Germany, and there are numerous regulations, such as data protection laws and European Union guidelines, governing their use. Israel has a very different approach in this area: electronic patient records have been in use for some time, and Israeli patient data is generally available to researchers and industry. AI applications are only to be regulated there once practical experience has been gained, rather than before their introduction. By comparing the two, we hope to gain important insights into how and where we still need to make adjustments here,” says Prof. Schicktanz.
Project Focus and Partners
On behalf of UMG, Prof. Schicktanz is responsible for the project’s extensive interview studies with affected parties and stakeholders, the analysis of the interview results, and their translation into policy recommendations. The interviews are intended to shed light on the attitudes of individual stakeholder groups towards the regulatory provisions on data collection and AI use, and to highlight their experiences with these provisions to date. The aim is to identify potential problems that currently exist in practice. In addition, UMG will organise a cross-state online exhibition, which will be accessible via the internet, to inform the public about the topic.
Prof. Dr Christoph Hönnige, Professor of Political Science at Leibniz University Hannover, is conducting the comparative analysis of political and regulatory frameworks to examine their implementation and acceptance among various stakeholders. He is also coordinating a parallel public survey in collaboration with the Israeli partners and carrying out a statistical analysis of the results. The survey will gauge public attitudes towards control and regulatory mechanisms governing AI development and data use for research and industry. The selection of respondents is based on scientific methods familiar from electoral surveys and is carried out by specialist agencies.
The stakeholder groups surveyed in the project include doctors, developers, policy-makers, patients and the general public.
Coordination on the Israeli side is being handled by social scientist Prof. Dr Aviad Raz from the Department of Sociology and Bioethics at Ben-Gurion University of the Negev, supported by medical anthropologist Dr Clemence Pinel. In addition, social scientist Prof. Dr Hagai Boas, Head of the Science, Technology and Society Department at the Van Leer Jerusalem Institute, is involved in the Israeli data collection and the design of the online exhibition.
Outlook
In future, further countries are to be included in the study, with a particular focus on examining the role of the ‘European Health Data Space’. The European Health Data Space is a programme designed to make health data accessible for Europe-wide research and analysis.
The project thus builds on the EU’s ‘Digital Decade 2030’ strategy, which aims to improve digital infrastructure, promote digital skills and accelerate the digital transition. The programme calls for the involvement of private and public stakeholders to identify the best ways to regulate a transparent and open digital environment. The project also aims to support democratic, knowledge-informed policy-making.
Contact
Prof. Dr Silke Schicktanz, Institute for Ethics and History of Medicine, University Medicine Göttingen, send an e-mail
Source: University Medical Center Göttingen (in German)