Recommendations for the ethical development and use of medical decision-support systems

Medical decision support systems (MDSS) play an increasingly important role in medical practice. By assisting physicians with making clinical decisions, MDSS are expected to improve the quality of medical care. However, there are also concerns that malfunctioning or inappropriate use of MDSS could jeopardize the well-being of the patient. While several authors have already discussed ethical issues arising with the use of computer-assisted medical decision making, there is still no consensus about the ethically appropriate use of MDSS. Based on a review and synthesis of previous relevant work, this paper proposes a comprehensive set of recommendations for the ethical development and application of MDSS.