Implementing Ethics in Healthcare AI-Based Applications: A Scoping Review

Area of Science:

• Medical Ethics
• Artificial Intelligence
• Health Informatics

Background:

• Growing concerns regarding Artificial Intelligence (AI) adoption in healthcare.
• AI-based Healthcare Applications (AIHA) challenge existing medical ethics and regulatory frameworks.
• Need for understanding AI ethics implementation in healthcare.

Purpose of the Study:

• To explore the implementation of ethics frameworks in AIHA.
• To evaluate the success of these implementations.
• To identify challenges and strategies for operationalizing AI ethics in healthcare.

Main Methods:

• Scoping review of AI ethics frameworks in AIHA.
• Analysis of implementation strategies and evaluation methods.
• Identification of challenges across ethical, design, technological, organizational, and regulatory levels.

Main Results:

• AI-specific ethics frameworks show limited adoption in healthcare, often used with other frameworks.
• Operationalization of ethics frameworks is complex, facing multi-level challenges.
• Proactive, contextual, technological, checklist, organizational, and evidence-based strategies were identified.

Conclusions:

• Interdisciplinary approaches show promise for AI ethics in healthcare.
• Limited reporting on the implementation of ethics frameworks in AIHA necessitates greater transparency.
• There is a critical need for transparent reporting to ensure trustworthy AI in healthcare.