An Ethics Impact Assessment (EIA) for AI uses in Health & Care: The correlation of ethics and legal aspects when AI systems are used in health & care contexts

The field of automated-decision making systems using AI technologies has evolved rapidly over the past years. Alongside the technological evolution, the debate surrounding the principles from an ethics point of view that these systems should be based upon, has produced a prolific number of analyses and discussions. In the health & care context, AI systems serve a wide range of activities, from prevention and diagnosis to treatment and monitoring and a variety of users, be it health & care experts or personnel as well as healthy individuals or those requiring medical assistance or treatment. Some of the categories of uses and users, the opportunities and the challenges from a legal and ethics point of view, linked to each category, are discussed in this paper. A transdisciplinary approach is of primordial importance. Such approach should comprise stakeholders and elements from the technology design and development area, the legal and ethics fields and importantly, the users of such AI systems in the health & care context. The paper attempts to demonstrate the various notions that are entangled in the conception, design, development, deployment and use of such systems and introduce the idea of an ‘Ethics Impact Assessment’ (‘EIA’) for a more robust operationalization in a health & care context.