An Embodied Ethical Framework for Digitally Mediated Healthcare: A Nursing-Phenomenological Perspective

Area of Science:

• Digital Health Ethics
• Nursing Phenomenology
• Embodied Experience

Background:

• Digital health technologies (telemedicine, wearables, AI) are transforming healthcare delivery and experience.
• Ethical discussions in digital health predominantly focus on data governance, privacy, and access, neglecting the embodied aspects of care.
• The lived experience of digitally mediated healthcare, especially within nursing, requires deeper ethical consideration.

Purpose of the Study:

• To develop a nursing-phenomenological framework for digital health ethics.
• To analyze how digital technologies mediate patients' embodied experiences of illness and care.
• To integrate phenomenological and postphenomenological perspectives to understand technology's role in healthcare.

Main Methods:

• Drawing on Merleau-Ponty's phenomenology of the lived body to examine digitally mediated care's impact on bodily schema, perception, and presence.
• Utilizing Don Ihde's postphenomenology to explore how technologies actively mediate perception and co-constitute embodiment.
• Applying a nursing-phenomenological lens to analyze clinical encounters and nursing practice within digital health contexts.

Main Results:

• Digitally mediated care reshapes patients' bodily schema, perception, and sense of presence.
• Technologies actively mediate perception, co-constitute embodiment, and influence clinical interpretation and patient engagement.
• The framework highlights how technologies generate multiple stabilities affecting nursing practice and patient experience.

Conclusions:

• Digital health ethics must extend beyond abstract principles to encompass the embodied, technologically mediated realities of care.
• A situated ethical lens focusing on experiential and technological dimensions is crucial for nursing practice, technology design, and health policy.
• Understanding the embodied impact of digital health is essential for ethical healthcare delivery.