Mapping Ethical Guidelines for AI in Healthcare: A Global Perspective

The integration of AI into healthcare has raised ethical concerns, including algorithmic bias, patient privacy, and accountability. Despite global efforts to establish ethical guidelines for AI, healthcare-specific AI ethics frameworks are actively evolving, with common principles emerging but not yet widely adopted in practice. This study focuses on English-language policy documents and maps global AI ethics guidelines in healthcare through a systematic review of over 3,800 sources. From this pool, 140 documents were selected based on strict inclusion criteria, including explicit reference to AI or related concepts, the use of normative ethical language, and their origin from institutional entities such as non-profits, governmental bodies, and academic or professional societies. The findings are visualized on an interactive world map, highlighting significant regional variations in ethical principles such as fairness, transparency, and privacy. This study underscores the need for harmonizing AI ethics guidelines in healthcare and offers actionable insights for policymakers, researchers, and stakeholders.