Digital health: meeting the ethical and policy challenges

Abstract

Digital health encompasses a wide range of novel digital technologies related to health and medicine. Such technologies rely on recent advances in the collection and analysis of ever increasing amounts of data from both patients and healthy citizens. Along with new opportunities, however, come new ethical and policy challenges. These range from the need to adapt current evidence-based standards, to issues of privacy, oversight, accountability and public trust as well as national and international data governance and management. This review illustrates key issues and challenges facing the rapidly unfolding digital health paradigm and reflects on the impact of big data in medical research and clinical practice both internationally and in Switzerland. It concludes by emphasising five conditions that will be crucial to fulfil in order to foster innovation and fair benefit sharing in digital health.