Building an ethical framework for cross-border applications: The KONFIDO project

Abstract

Innovative eHealth technologies and solutions are changing the way healthcare is delivered, raising many challenges regarding the ethical concerns that need to be addressed. There is a growing demand for tools that enable the assessments of the ethical impact in order to assure compatibility or highlight areas of incompatibility. This paper aims to address the ethical challenges that will arise during KONFIDO EU-funded project. KONFIDO project aims to develop tools and procedures to create a paradigm for secure inner and cross-border exchange of healthcare data in a legal and ethical way at both national and European level. The paper proposes an ethical framework that consists of a set of ethical principles derived from recent literature and European regulation and a supporting checklist. The ethical framework represents a concrete and practical guidance for healthcare professionals and developers in order to build ethically acceptable KONFIDO solutions.