Ethical Issues Research On Ubiquitous Healthcare

With the rapid integration of various emerging information technologies including Internet of Things,Ubiquitous Computing,Big Data,Cloud Computing,Mobile Internet,Sensor Technology and Cognitive Computing,as well as the constant new breakthrough in Precision Medicine,Nano Materials and Medical Robot,the human beings are stepping into the new era of Ubiquitous Healthcare.Ubiquitous Healthcare is the advanced stage of medical informatization,intellectualization and precision development with the features of medical data perception,medical service transparency,medical resources sharing,clinical medicine precision,medical experience facilitation,medical cost economizing and doctor-patient communication normalization,which initiates a new medical model,expands the healthy ideas of human beings,promotes the doctor-patient ecological remediation,improves the medical service efficiency and guides the direction for the current medical treatment dilemma.However,the new technology ecology and contemporary circumstance are impacting and restructuring the current medical ethics system,as well as causes the reverse transformation in medical treatment.On one hand,the traditional medical social ethics problems such as difficulties in getting medical service,high cost of getting medical treatment,strained doctor-patient relationship and unbalanced distribution of medical resources will be greatly relieved.On the other hand,the negative effect of technologies arises without expectations,new ethical issues and social risks emerge in endlessly including full-time and full-view privacy monitoring,intensifying of medical digital divide,doctor-patient relationship materialization,Electronic Health ID and gene discrimination,increasing risks in medical technology,flourishing of medical consumerism,non-site medical treatment and responsibility affirmation on intelligent armarium,which calls for the establishment of medical ethics system suitable to the new era.The paper discusses the ethical risks and countermeasures under the background of Ubiquitous Healthcare from four ethics topics including medical privacy and security,medical responsibilities,medical fairness and doctor-patient relationship.Privacy and security problems are urgently needed to be solved in the application and promotion of ubiquitous Healthcare.Under the background of Ubiquitous Healthcare,“on-lining” and “monitoring” are inevitable life status,and the privacy disclosure in personal medical treatment and security risks are increasing.The connotation,forms and types of medical privacy are constantly expanding,the features of value and big data are constantly increasing,the boundary between personal information is more and more vague,and people get used to release more privacy in order to obtain more convenient,transparent and personalized services.Therefore,the control right of individuals on medical privacy weakens,the traditional privacy protection system begins to fall apart under the impact of big data technology,the privacy value maybe overturned thoroughly.The trend of medical information privacy,medical privacy datamation and medical data openness is overwhelming.Moreover,the privacy disclosure risk spreads to the digital space from physical space,restructuring new medical privacy protection framework is in urgent need.The paper puts forward the key points of medical privacy and security protection in new era from the aspects such as technology,law,management,self-discipline and cognition.Ubiquitous Healthcare optimizes the public medical resource allocation,which makes the doctor-patient rights more equal.However,the digital divide constructed based on the digital literacy will cause unequal sharing of Ubiquitous Healthcare technology,equipment and service.The electronic health ID may make the patients unable to escape from the negative effect of consolidated labels,which causes the prejudice and discrimination of the patients based on the social backgrounds including age,gender and health.In addition,the enhancement technique of Ubiquitous Healthcare will bring the inequality in opportunity and intergeneration.Ubiquitous Healthcare makes more patients enjoy convenient medical services,while rare medical resources will also hinder the realization of individual medical right.“Benefiting the public”,“efficiency first,taking fairness into consideration” and “equality in differences” are the basic principles for high-end resource optimization and allocation of Ubiquitous Healthcare as well as the inevitable choice in high-end medical resources allocation.The fairness of Ubiquitous Healthcare should be gradually promoted from the aspects including optimizing the medical resources,eliminating the digital divide,paying attention to the healthy rights and interests of vulnerable groups,enhancing the medical information protection awareness and eradicating the digital identity discrimination.With the gradual popularization of the emerging medical models such as internet medical,tele medical and cloud medical,large number of intelligent equipments with perceptive function have participated in the whole process of health management and medical aid,which causes new medical disputes and medical responsibility affirmation issues.For example,it is difficult to identify the responsibilities because of the various legal subjects of non-site medical treatment involving the local doctors,long-distance doctors and patients;the intelligent medical equipment becomes the unpredictable risks for the responsibility subject;the affirmation on authority of medical data is difficult.Therefore,it is inevitable to establish the responsibility implementation mechanism of Ubiquitous Healthcare.In addition,it is needed to strengthen tele medical management and perfect the laws and regulations;standardize the affirmation problem on authority of medical data;specify the related legal responsibilities of medical equipment;perfect the medical technology supervision and risk avoidance system.Under the background of traditional medical environment,high role expectation on doctors,the obvious phenomenon of“seeking medical advice based on relationship”,and authority in the modern medicine technology make the relationship between doctors and patients become more and more strained.Ubiquitous Healthcare changes the traditional model of face-to-face communication between the doctors and the patients and largely increases the doctor-patient communication efficiency and frequency.Moreover,the patients manage their own health and participate in the medical process imitatively,and the democratization trend of doctor-patient relationship is increasingly obvious.However,the introduction of large number of advanced medical equipment intensifies the medical technology risks;the medical consumerism prevails;the application of Ubiquitous Healthcare technology reduces the face-to-face communication chances between doctors and patients,and the doctor-patient relationship gradually becomes materialized.Therefore,it is significant to recognize the technical risks of Ubiquitous Healthcare rationally and strengthen the entry management of technologies;perfect the ethics supervision contents and improve the legal intermediation mechanism;build rational medical consumption concept and strengthen the education on health;prevent the trend of medical materialization and establish the humanity communication platform.In order to effectively cope with and avoid the ethics risks of Ubiquitous Healthcare,it is necessary to improve the technical design of Ubiquitous Healthcare,realize the collaborative innovation of ethics and system,and cultivate a social environment of pursuing morality.A large number of social risk problems reflects the complexity and challenges of Ubiquitous Healthcare development,but cannot be used to deny the value of Ubiquitous Healthcare.Facing the new problems of Ubiquitous Healthcare may occur,we need to balance the personal aspirations,public interest and market demand,promote the medical institutions,government engineers,in policy formulation,technology development,technology application process to strengthen top-level design and the system design.In general,in order to effectively cope with and avoid the ethics risks of Ubiquitous Healthcare,it is necessary to improve the technical design of Ubiquitous Healthcare,realize the collaborative innovation of ethics and system,and cultivate a social environment of pursuing morality.