Ethics of E-health
An interview with Dr. Tim Jacquemard
Dr. Tim Jacquemard joined me on the Science4Parliament podcast to talk about the social and ethical implications of eHealth technology. Dr Jacquemard was another of the researchers who had spent three months as ‘Researcher in Residence’ in the Houses of the Oireachtas (Irish Parliament) in 2021 as part of the Science Foundation Ireland Public Service Fellowship Programme. getting an inside view of the workings of parliament, sharing his expertise with members and producing a report on his expert subject area.
Dr. Jacquemard’s area of research is how to address complex social issues with ethical AI including eHealth regulation and governance, examining processes around electronic patient records, patient portals and data analytics. He sees Ireland as having some work to do in relation to creating a digital infrastructure within healthcare but there are great opportunities to make a real impact on people lives. There is the possibility of real benefits but, he acknowledges, also a lot at stake. We must ask ourselves, ‘how are we going to use the data? Who will reap the benefits? Are we taking everybody along?’
Click here for the full podcast episode
He says that most of the concerns surrounding eHealth are in relation to access to data and transparency surrounding this access. Patients may be asked for a lot of personal information by healthcare workers and in a lot of cases they are willing and happy to share it but they want to know that this data will be used only in relation to their healthcare and not shared with a third party, for example marketing or insurance companies.
In relation to developing a national healthcare system, he says that transparency is the most important issue in relation to the use of healthcare data. It must be very clearly identified what the healthcare data is needed and what exactly it will be used for. These parameters should then be the basis of the healthcare system, which needs to be cyber secure, ensuring that access to the data can be strictly controlled and that access to it is transparent, who is accessing it, why they are accessing it and or what purposes.
His advice for parliamentarians who want to engage with scientists is just to contact them. Look them up on LinkedIn, or university websites; they all have a story to tell and are more than willing to tell it.
Dr. Jacquemard’s background is in philosophy and he has extensive experience in technology assessment with FutureNeuro in Dublin and the Rathenau Instituut in the Netherlands. He is currently working as a Senior Research Analyst with Trilateral Research in Waterford.
His spotlight report on the social and ethical implications of eHealth (electronic health) applications is available here-