The Ethics Blog

A blog from the Centre for Research Ethics & Bioethics (CRB)

Tag: healthcare ethics

AI is the answer! But what is the question?

Question marks on paper. Photo: Lee Loo The First, Pexels.
3 December, 2024 / / 1 Comment

Many projects are underway in Sweden regarding AI systems in healthcare. The testing of AI solutions is in full swing. But many systems do not seem to be implemented and used. Why? Often it is a matter of poor preparatory work. Without a carefully considered strategy and clear goals, we risk scaling up AI systems that cannot cope with the complexity of healthcare.

The atmosphere around many AI ​​ventures can almost be a little religious. You must not be negative or ask critical questions. Then you are quickly branded as a cynic who slows down development and does not understand the signs of the times. You almost have to blind yourself to potential pitfalls and speak and act like a true believer. Many justify the eager testing of AI by saying that we must dare to try and then see which solutions turn out to be successful. It is fascinating how willingly we apply AI to all sorts of tasks. But are we doing it the right way, or do we risk rushing on without giving ourselves time to think?

There are indeed economical and practical challenges in healthcare. It is not only about a lack of financial resources, but also about a lack of personnel and specialists. Before we can allow technologies like AI to become part of our everyday lives, we need to ask ourselves some important questions: What problems are we trying to solve? How do our solutions affect the people involved? We may also need to clarify whether the purpose of the AI ​​system is to almost take over an entire work task or rather to facilitate our work in certain well-defined respects. The development of AI products should also pay extra attention to socially created categories of ethnicity and gender to avoid reinforcing existing inequalities through biased data selection. Ethically well-considered AI implementations probably lead to better clinical outcomes and more efficient care. It is easy to make hasty decisions that soon turn out to be wrong: accuracy should always be a priority. It is better to think right and slow than fast and wrong. Clinical studies should be conducted even on seemingly not so advanced AI products. In radiology, this tradition is well established, but it is not as common in primary care. If a way of working is to be changed with the help of AI, one should evaluate what effects it can have.

We must therefore not neglect three things: We must first of all define the need for an AI solution. We must then consider that the AI ​​tool is not trained with biased data. Finally, we need to evaluate the AI ​​solution before implementing it.

With the rapid data collection that apps and digital tools allow today, it is important not to get carried away, but to carefully consider the ethics of designing and implementing AI. Unfortunately, the mantra has become: “If we have data, we should develop an AI.” And that mantra makes anyone who asks “Why?” seem suspicious. But the question must be asked. It does not hinder the development of AI solutions, but contributes to it. Careful ethical considerations improve the quality of the AI ​​product and strengthens the credibility of the implementation.

I therefore want to warn against being seduced by the idea of ​​AI solutions for all sorts of tasks. Before we say AI is the answer, we need to ask ourselves: What is the question? Only if we can define a real issue or challenge can we ensure that the technology becomes a helping hand instead of a burden. We do not want to periodically end up in the situation where we suddenly have to pull the emergency brake, as in a recent major Swedish investment in AI in healthcare, called Millennium. We must not get stuck in the mindset that everything can be done faster and easier with AI. We must also not be driven by the fear of falling behind if we do not immediately introduce AI. Only a carefully considered evaluation of the need and the design of an AI solution can ensure appropriate care that is also effective. To get correct answers quickly, we must first give ourselves time to think.

Written by…

Jennifer Viberg Johansson, who is an Associate Professor in Medical Ethics at the Centre for Research Ethics & Bioethics.

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We challenge habits of thought

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What does it mean to prioritize patients according to severity?

14 February, 2023 / / 1 Comment

How should patients be prioritized in health care? In many countries’ regulations, the answer to this question is formulated in terms of severity: the more severe the illness of a patient is, the higher the patient should be prioritized. Although other things may matter for health care priorities, such as cost-effectiveness, severity should be at least one of the criteria. But what makes an illness more severe than another? How should we compare patients in terms of severity?

A recently launched research project tries to tackle these issues. The project is a collaboration between CRB and The National Centre for Priorities in Health in Sweden at Linköping University. The issue of morally sound priority setting in health care is increasingly important and pressing, not least because of the continuing development of new treatments. We can do more for patients today than ever before, but these treatments compete for the limited resources of health care.

The purpose of the project is to make the vague and contested notion of severity more normatively robust and precise by investigating moral issues related to severity. If the concept of severity is to provide valid reasons for prioritization, we must first examine what we should mean by the concept in the context of disease and health care. For instance, there are different ideas about why severity should matter in health care priorities. One idea is that being more severely ill means being worse off than others and that this inequality is something bad. Another idea is that we have stronger reasons to help people the worse off they are, that is, some idea about the moral weight of evil. These different ideas have different implications for which patients to treat first.

There are also different notions about what features of a patient or illness makes that patient more severely ill. It could be quality of life, functioning, existential suffering, or length of life. A common intuition is that an illness with a prognosis of one year survival is more severe when it affects a 20-year old person than an 80-year old person, but that there is no difference in severity when the same illness affects people only ten years apart, say a 40-year old compared to a 50-year old. Together with Borgar Jølstad, I have investigated if this intuition holds up for closer scrutiny. Our conclusion is that it is doubtful. Read our article here: Age and Illness Severity: A Case of Irrelevant Utilities?

The project also looks into economic and legal issues. One economic issue is how different notions of severity affect the total health we can get out of the health care system with a limited budget. Legally, the issue is to what extent different notions of severity are compatible with existing regulations.

This was just a brief presentation of the new project. More posts on specific issues will come when we publish our studies in journals. Hopefully we can soon propose some well-argued answers on how to prioritize patients according to severity. If you want to know more about our basic perspective on some of the issues that will be investigated further, you can read this article: Severity as a Priority Setting Criterion: Setting a Challenging Research Agenda.

Niklas Juth

Written by…

Niklas Juth, Professor of Clinical Medical Ethics at the Centre for Research Ethics & Bioethics (CRB)

Jølstad, B., & Juth, N. (2022). Age and Illness Severity: A Case of Irrelevant Utilities? Utilitas, 34(2), 209-224. doi:10.1017/S0953820822000024

Barra, M., Broqvist, M., Gustavsson, E. et al. Severity as a Priority Setting Criterion: Setting a Challenging Research Agenda. Health Care Analysis 28, 25–44 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10728-019-00371-z

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Thesis on reproductive ethics

25 February, 2019 / / 0 Comments

Pär SegerdahlOn Thursday, February 28, Amal Matar defends her thesis in the field of reproductive ethics.

As genetic tests become cheaper and more reliable, the potential use of genetic tests also expands. One use could be offering preconception genetic screening to entire populations. Prospective parents could find out if they are carriers of the same recessive autosomal genetic condition, and could plan future pregnancies. Carriers of such genetic conditions can be healthy, but if both parents have the same predisposition, the risk is 25 percent that their child will have the disease.

Preconception genetic screening is not implemented in Sweden. Would it be possible to do so in the future? What would the ethical and social implications be? Is it likely that preconception genetic screening will be implemented in Sweden? These are some of the questions that Amal Matar examines in her thesis.

Amal Matar’s interviews with Swedish healthcare professionals and policymaking experts indicate that preconception genetic screening will not be implemented in Sweden. The interviewees expressed the opinion that such screening would not satisfy any medical need, would threaten important values ​​in Swedish society and in the healthcare system, and require excessive resources.

Amal Matar defends her thesis in the Uppsala University Main Building (Biskopsgatan 3), room IV, on Thursday, February 28 at 13:00. You find an earlier interview with Amal Matar here. If you want to read the thesis, you find a link below.

Pär Segerdahl

Matar, Amal. 2019. Considering a Baby? Responsible Screening for the Future. Uppsala: Acta Universitatis Upsaliensis

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Approaching future issues - the Ethics Blog

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Dissertation on the decision not to resuscitate

26 November, 2018 / / 0 Comments

Pär SegerdahlSince the beginning of this blog, I have had the opportunity to write about Mona Pettersson’s research, which deals with decisions in cancer care not to resuscitate terminally ill patients through cardiopulmonary resuscitation. The physician makes the decision, if the patient has a too bad prognosis and is too weak to survive the treatment with good quality of life. Or if the patient has expressed a desire to not receive the treatment.

The latest post I published is from August this year: Ethical competence for the decision not to resuscitate. Since then, Mona Pettersson has not only published another article, but also defended her dissertation. In four sub-studies, she examines nurses and physicians’ experiences of the decision not to resuscitate. Among other things, she investigates their understanding of ethical competence as it relates to the decision, as well as what aspects of the decision they consider most important.

If you want to read the entire work, download the dissertation. You can also read more about Mona Pettersson in this Profile.

Pär Segerdahl

Pettersson, M. 2018. COMPETENCE AND COMMUNICATION. Do Not Resuscitate Decisions in Cancer Care. Digital Comprehensive Summaries of Uppsala Dissertations from the Faculty of Medicine 1499. 62 pp. Uppsala: Acta Universitatis Upsaliensis. ISBN 978-91-513-0459-5.

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We have a clinical perspective : www.ethicsblog.crb.uu.se

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Patients find misleading information on the internet

30 October, 2018 / / 0 Comments

Pär SegerdahlIn phase 1 clinical studies of substances that might possibly be used to treat cancer in the future, cancer patients are recruited as research participants. These patients almost always have advanced cancer that no longer responds to the standard treatment.

That research participation would affect the cancer is unlikely. The purpose of a phase 1 study is to determine safe dosage range and to investigate side effects and other safety issues. This will then enable proceeding to investigating the effectiveness of the substance on specific forms of cancer, but with other research participants.

Given that patients often seek online information on clinical trials, Tove Godskesen, Josepine Fernow and Stefan Eriksson wanted to investigate the quality of the information that currently is available on the internet about phase 1 clinical cancer trials in Sweden, Denmark and Norway.

The results they report in the European Journal of Cancer Care are quite alarming. The most serious problem, as I understand it, is that the information conceals risks of serious side effects, and in various ways suggests possible positive treatment outcomes. This lack of accurate language is serious. We are dealing with severely ill patients who easily entertain unrealistic hopes for new treatment options.

To give a picture of the problem, I would like to give a few examples of typical phrases that Godskesen, Fernow and Eriksson found in the information on the internet, as well as their suggestions for more adequate wordings. Noticing the contrast between the linguistic usages is instructive.

One problem is that the information speaks of treatment, even though it is about research participation. Instead of writing “If you are interested in the treatment,” you could write “If you want to participate in the research.” Rather than writing “Patients will be treated with X,” you could write “Participants will be given X.”

The substance being tested is sometimes described as a medicine or therapy. Instead, you can write “You will get a substance called X.”

Another problem is that research participation is described as an advantage and opportunity for the cancer patient. Instead of writing “An advantage of study participation is that…,” one could write “The study might lead to better cancer treatments for future patients.” Rather than writing “This treatment could be an opportunity for you,” which is extremely misleading in phase 1 clinical cancer trials, one could more accurately say, “You can participate in this study.”

The authors also tested the readability of the texts they found on the internet. The Danish website skaccd.org had the best readability scores, followed by the Norwegian site helsenorge.no. The Swedish website cancercenter.se got the worst readability scores. The information was very brief and deemed to require a PhD to be understandable.

It is, of course, intelligible that it is hard to speak intelligibly about such difficult things as cancer trials. Not only do the patients recruited as study participants hope for effective treatment. The whole point of the research is effective cancer treatment. This is the ultimate perspective of the research; the horizon towards which the gaze is turned.

The fact, however, is that this horizon is far removed, far away in the future, and is about other cancer patients than those who participate in phase 1 trials. Therefore, it is important not to let this perspective characterize information to patients in whom hope would be unrealistic.

Do not talk about treatments and opportunities. Just say “You can participate in this study.”

Pär Segerdahl

Godskesen, TE, Fernow J, Eriksson S. Quality of online information about phase I clinical cancer trials in Sweden, Denmark and Norway. Eur J Cancer Care. 2018;e12937. https://doi.org/10.1111/ecc.12937

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We have a clinical perspective : www.ethicsblog.crb.uu.se

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Swedish policymakers on genetic screening before pregnancy

17 October, 2018 / / 0 Comments

Pär SegerdahlSome genetic diseases do not develop in  the child unless both parents happen to have the same gene. Parents can be healthy and unaware that they have the same non-dominant disease gene. In these cases, the risk that their child develops the disease is 25 percent.

Preconception expanded carrier screening could be offered to entire populations, to make everyone who so wishes more informed about their genetic vulnerabilities and better equipped to plan their partner choice and pregnancies. In Sweden, this is not relevant, but the issue could be considered in the future.

In a new article in the Journal of Community Genetics, Amal Matar (PhD student at CRB) reports an interview study with Swedish policymakers: experts at the Swedish National Council on Medical Ethics, at the Swedish Agency for Health Technology Assessment and Assessment of Social Services, and at the National Board of Health and Welfare. Amal Matar wanted to investigate how these influential experts perceive ethical and social aspects of preconception expanded carrier screening, as a new health technology.

It is exciting to get insight into how Swedish policymakers reason about offering genetic screening before pregnancy. They consider alternative financing, prioritization and costs for healthcare. They discuss Sweden as part of the EU. They reflect on what services the healthcare system needs to offer people, depending on what the test results reveal about them. They talk about the need for more research and public engagement, as well as about long-term societal effects.

Questions about responsibility, both parental and societal, struck me as extra interesting. If friends and relatives test themselves, it may seem irresponsible not to do so. Couples can then feel a social pressure to undergo the test, which makes their voluntariness illusory. The experts also saw problems in actively going out looking for disorders in people who are not sick. Society has a responsibility to help people when they are ill, but looking for disease risks in people without symptoms changes the whole evaluation of the risks and benefits of a health technology.

Amal Matar’s conclusion is that Swedish policymakers believe that preconception expanded carrier screening currently is not appropriate in the Swedish healthcare system. The reason commonly used in favor of screening, that it supports well-informed reproductive decision-making, was considered insufficient by the experts if the screening is financed through taxes. They also saw long-term threats to important values ​​in Swedish healthcare.

Pär Segerdahl

Matar, A., Hansson, M.G. and Höglund, A.T. “A perfect society” – Swedish policymakers’ ethical and social views on preconception expanded carrier screening. Journal of Community Genetics, published online 26 September 2018, https://doi.org/10.1007/s12687-018-0389-x

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Approaching future issues - the Ethics Blog

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Supporting clinicians to trust themselves

3 October, 2018 / / 0 Comments

Pär SegerdahlSuppose that you want to learn to speak a language, but the course is overloaded by grammatical terminology. During the lessons, you hardly hear any of the words that belong to the language you want to learn. They drown in technical, grammatical terms. It is as if you had come to a course on general linguistic theory, not German.

When clinicians encounter healthcare ethics as a subject of education, they may have similar experiences. As adult humans they already can feel when everything is alright in a situation. Or when there is a problem; when attention is needed and action must be taken. (We do it every day.) However, to handle the specific challenges that may arise in healthcare, clinicians may need support to further develop this already existing human ability.

Unfortunately, healthcare ethics is typically not presented as development of abilities we already have as human beings. Instead, it is presented as a new subject. Being ethical is presented as having the specific knowledge of this subject. Ethics then seems to be about reasoning in terms of abstract ethical concepts and principles. It is as if you had come to a course on general moral theory, not healthcare ethics. And since most of us do not know a thing about moral theory, we feel ethically stupid and powerless, and lose our self-confidence.

However, just as you don’t need linguistic theory to speak a language, you don’t need moral theory to function ethically. Rather, it is the other way around. It is because we already speak and function ethically that there can be such intellectual activities as grammar and moral theory. Can healthcare ethics be taught without putting the cart before the horse?

A new (free to download) book discusses the issue: Rethinking Health Care Ethics. The book is a lucid critique of healthcare ethics as a specific subject; a critique that naturally leads into constructive suggestions for an alternative pedagogy. The book should be of high interest to teachers in healthcare ethics, to ethicists, and to anyone who finds that ethics often is presented in ways that make us estranged from ourselves.

What most impresses me in this book is its trust in the human. The foundation of ethics is in the human self, not in moral theory. Any adult human already carries ethics in the self, without verbalizing it as specific ethical concepts and principles.

Certainly, clinicians need education in healthcare ethics. But what is specific in the teaching is the unique ethical challenges that may arise in healthcare. Ethics itself is already in place, in the living humans who are entering healthcare as a profession.

Ethics should not be imposed, then, as if it were a new subject. It rather needs support to grow in humans, and to mature for the specific challenges that arise in healthcare.

This trust in the human is unusual. Distrust, feeding the demand for control, is so much more common.

Pär Segerdahl

Scher, S. & Kozlowska, K. 2018. Rethinking Health Care Ethics. Palgrave

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We recommend readings - the Ethics Blog

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