Ethical aspects in eHealth – design of a privacy-friendly system

Purpose – The medical advances and historical fluctuations in the demographics are contributing to the rise of the average age. These changes are increasing the pressure to organize adequate care to a growing number of individuals. As a way to provide efficient and cost-effective care, eHealth systems are gaining importance. However, this trend is creating new ethical concerns. Major issues are privacy and patients’ control over their data. To deploy these systems on a large scale, they need to offer strict privacy protection. Even though many research proposals focus on eHealth systems and related ethical requirements, there is an evident lack of practical solutions for protecting users’ personal information. The purpose of this study is to explore the ethical considerations related to these systems and extract the privacy requirements. This paper also aims to put forth a system design which ensures appropriate privacy protection. Design/methodology/approach – This paper investigates the existing work in...