Abstract:
Personal Health Monitoring (PHM) uses electronic devices which monitor and record health-related data
outside a hospital, usually within the home. This paper examines the ethical issues raised by PHM. Eight themes
describing the ethical implications of PHM are identified through a review of 68 academic articles concerning
PHM. The identified themes include privacy, autonomy, obtrusiveness and visibility, stigma and identity,
medicalisation, social isolation, delivery of care, and safety and technological need. The issues around each
of these are discussed. The system / lifeworld perspective of Habermas is applied to develop an understanding
of the role of PHMs as mediators of communication between the institutional and the domestic environment.
Furthermore, links are established between the ethical issues to demonstrate that the ethics of PHM involves
a complex network of ethical interactions. The paper extends the discussion of the critical effect PHMs have
on the patient’s identity and concludes that a holistic understanding of the ethical issues surrounding PHMs
will help both researchers and practitioners in developing effective PHM implementations.1
