Investigating ethical design requirements for digitalized healthcare support: The case of ambulatory physiotherapeutic assistance systems

Abstract

Due to the advent of digitalized healthcare services and de-centralized structures, the tele-medical support of therapeutic treatments is increasingly in the focus of researchers and practitioners. Here, systems offering an interface between patients and physicians emerge as a fruitful way to reduce clinical visits and, thus, increase patient satisfaction and health. Yet, research on requirements for such systems has largely focused on patients who are not able to fully grasp the issues associated with such technologies due to their novelty and the changes they entail. With this study, inspired by the Responsible Innovation framework, we investigate the case of an ambulatory physiotherapeutic assistance system. We conducted four focus group workshops involving experts from different domains in order to integrate multiple stakeholder perspectives and thereby explore system design requirements. Our findings indicate that patient autonomy, security, privacy, competence and socio-cultural aspects contain relevant technological implications, each involving multiple design requirements.