Pandemic Risk and Standpoint Epistemology: A Matter of Solidarity
AbstractCurrent and past pandemics have several aspects in common. It is expected that all members of society contribute to beat it. But it is also clear that the risks associated with the pandemic are different for different groups. This makes that appeals to solidarity based on technocratic risk calculations are only partially successful. Objective ‘risks of transmission’ may, for example, be trumped by risks of letting down people in need of help or by missing out certain opportunities in life. In this paper we argue that a rapprochement of the insights of standpoint epistemology with pandemic science and pandemic p...
Source: Health Care Analysis - October 25, 2021 Category: Health Management Source Type: research
The Case for Telemedical Early Medical Abortion in England: Dispelling Adult Safeguarding Concerns
AbstractAccess to abortion care has been hugely affected by the COVID-19 pandemic. This has prompted several governments to permit the use of telemedicine for fully remote care pathways, thereby ensuring pregnant people are still able to access services. One such government is that of England, where these new care pathways have been publicly scrutinised. Those opposed to telemedical early medical abortion care have raised myriad concerns, though they largely centre on matters of patient safeguarding. It is argued that healthcare professionals cannot adequately carry out their safeguarding duties if the patient is not in th...
Source: Health Care Analysis - October 23, 2021 Category: Health Management Source Type: research
Maternal –Fetal Surgery: Does Recognising Fetal Patienthood Pose a Threat to Pregnant Women’s Autonomy?
AbstractMaternal –fetal surgery (MFS) encompasses a range of innovative procedures aiming to treat fetal illnesses and anomalies during pregnancy. Their development and gradual introduction into healthcare raise important ethical issues concerning respect for pregnant women’s bodily integrity and autonomy. This paper asks what kind of ethical framework should be employed to best regulate the practice of MFS without eroding the hard-won rights of pregnant women. I examine some existing models conceptualising the relationship between a pregnant woman and the fetus to determine what kind of framework is the m ost adequate...
Source: Health Care Analysis - October 21, 2021 Category: Health Management Source Type: research
From ‘Consent or Anonymise’ to ‘Share and Protect’: Facilitating Access to Surplus Tissue for Research Whilst Safeguarding Donor Interests
This article suggests that in recognising the value in surplus ti ssue linked with information about the person, a ‘share and protect’ approach which considers safeguards other than anonymisation, where obtaining consent for research use would not be feasible, would better balance the public benefit of health research with the protection of individual rights a nd interests than a requirement foreither consentor anonymisation. (Source: Health Care Analysis)
Source: Health Care Analysis - July 14, 2021 Category: Health Management Source Type: research
Gender Transition: Is There a Right to Be Forgotten?
Conclusions on the ethical admissibility of the ‘right to be forgotten’ to control gender-affirming information are presented. (Source: Health Care Analysis)
Source: Health Care Analysis - May 2, 2021 Category: Health Management Source Type: research
How to Draw the Line Between Health and Disease? Start with Suffering
AbstractHow can we draw the line between health and disease? This crucial question of demarcation has immense practical implications and has troubled scholars for ages. The question will be addressed in three steps. First, I will present an important contribution by Rogers and Walker who argue forcefully that no line can be drawn between health and disease. However, a closer analysis of their argument reveals that a line-drawing problem for disease-related features does not necessarily imply a line-drawing problem for disease as such. The second step analyzes some alternative approaches to drawing the line between health a...
Source: Health Care Analysis - April 29, 2021 Category: Health Management Source Type: research
The Doctor as Parent, Partner, Provider … or Comrade? Distribution of Power in Past and Present Models of the Doctor–Patient Relationship
AbstractThe commonly occurring metaphors and models of the doctor –patient relationship can be divided into three clusters, depending on what distribution of power they represent: in the paternalist cluster, power resides with the physician; in the consumer model, power resides with the patient; in the partnership model, power is distributed equally between doct or and patient. Often, this tripartite division is accepted as an exhaustive typology of doctor–patient relationships. The main objective of this paper is to challenge this idea by introducing a fourth possibility and distribution of power, namely, the distribu...
Source: Health Care Analysis - April 27, 2021 Category: Health Management Source Type: research
Practitioner Bias as an Explanation for Low Rates of Palliative Care Among Patients with Advanced Dementia
AbstractPatients with advanced dementia are less likely than those with other terminal illnesses to receive palliative care. Due to the nature and course of dementia, there may be a failure to recognize the terminal stage of the disease. A possible and under-investigated explanation for this healthcare disparity is the healthcare practitioner who plays a primary role in end-of-life decision-making. Two potential areas that might impact provider decision-making are cognitive biases and moral considerations. In this analysis, we demonstrate how the cognitive biases and moral considerations of practitioners related to clinica...
Source: Health Care Analysis - March 30, 2021 Category: Health Management Source Type: research
A New Argument for No-Fault Compensation in Health Care: The Introduction of Artificial Intelligence Systems
AbstractArtificial intelligence (AI) systems advising healthcare professionals will be widely introduced into healthcare settings within the next 5 –10 years. This paper considers how this will sit with tort/negligence based legal approaches to compensation for medical error. It argues that the introduction of AI systems will provide an additional argument pointing towards no-fault compensation as the better legal solution to compensation fo r medical error in modern health care systems. The paper falls into four parts. The first part rehearses the main arguments for and against no-fault compensation. The second explain...
Source: Health Care Analysis - March 21, 2021 Category: Health Management Source Type: research
Witnessing Quality of Life of Persons with Profound Intellectual and Multiple Disabilities. A practical-Philosophical Approach
The objective of this paper is to give caregivers’ knowledge on the QoL of a person with P IMD a theoretical basis that values these experiences. We will argue that caregivers should be seen as witnesses, not assessors, and their statements on QoL as testimonies, not assessments. Audiences judge the trustworthiness of these witnesses intersubjectively, which implies a relationship charact erized by trust and suspicion. Trust supports the witness to tell in her own words about the QoL of the person with PIMD; it demands receptivity, indicating that both the witness and the audience are willing to reconsider their perspect...
Source: Health Care Analysis - March 17, 2021 Category: Health Management Source Type: research
Ethico-Political Aspects of Conceptualizing Screening: The Case of Dementia
This article examines conceptualizations of screening and case-finding. It shows how the definitions and delimitations of the concep ts (thewhat of screening) are drawn into the ethical, political, and practical dimensions that screening assessment criteria or principles are intended to clarify and control (thehow of screening, how it is and how it should be performed). As a result, different conceptualizations of screening provide the opportunity to rethink what ethical assessments should take place: the conceptualizations have different ethico-political implications. The article argues that population-based systematic sc...
Source: Health Care Analysis - March 16, 2021 Category: Health Management Source Type: research
Beyond Individual Triage: Regional Allocation of Life-Saving Resources such as Ventilators in Public Health Emergencies
AbstractIn the first wave of the COVID-19 pandemic, healthcare workers in some countries were forced to make distressing triaging decisions about which individual patients should receive potentially life-saving treatment. Much of the ethical discussion prompted by the pandemic has concerned which moral principles should ground our response to these individual triage questions. In this paper we aim to broaden the scope of this discussion by considering the ethics of broader structural allocation decisions raised by the COVID-19 pandemic. More specifically, we consider how nations ought to distribute a scarce life-saving res...
Source: Health Care Analysis - February 6, 2021 Category: Health Management Source Type: research
Prospective Intention-Based Lifestyle Contracts: mHealth Technology and Responsibility in Healthcare
AbstractAs the rising costs of lifestyle-related diseases place increasing strain on public healthcare systems, the individual ’s role in disease may be proposed as a healthcare rationing criterion. Literature thus far has largely focused on retrospective responsibility in healthcare. The concept of prospective responsibility, in the form of a lifestyle contract, warrants further investigation. The responsibilisation in h ealthcare debate also needs to take into account innovative developments in mobile health technology, such as wearable biometric devices and mobile apps, which may change how we hold others accountable ...
Source: Health Care Analysis - January 11, 2021 Category: Health Management Source Type: research
‘We Should View Him as an Individual’: The Role of the Child’s Future Autonomy in Shared Decision-Making About Unsolicited Findings in Pediatric Exome Sequencing
AbstractIn debates about genetic testing of children, as well as about disclosing unsolicited findings (UFs) of pediatric exome sequencing, respect for future autonomy should be regarded as aprima facie consideration for not taking steps that would entail denying the future adult the opportunity to decide for herself about what to know about her own genome. While the argument can be overridden when other, morally more weighty considerations are at stake, whether this is the case can only be determined in concrete cases. Importantly, when children grow into adolescents, respect for future autonomy will have to give way to r...
Source: Health Care Analysis - January 2, 2021 Category: Health Management Source Type: research
The Satisfaction with Life Scale: Philosophical Foundation and Practical Limitations
AbstractResearch and policymaking on positive mental health and well-being have increased within the last decade, partly fueled by decreasing levels of well-being in the general population and among at-risk groups. However, measurement of well-being often takes place in the absence of reflection on the underlying theoretical conceptualization of well-being. This disguises the fact that different rating scales of well-being often measure very different phenomena because rating scales are based on different philosophical assumptions, which represent radically different foundational views about the nature of well-being. The a...
Source: Health Care Analysis - January 2, 2021 Category: Health Management Source Type: research
