Four Ethical Issues of “E-Health”

This communication aims at introducing four ethical issues raised by e-health. The first one is the question of the generation and redefinition of the notion of “health data”, their usage and protection, in the context of the multiplication and decentralization of measure devices. The second one addresses the issue of equality of access to e-health technologies on political and economical grounds and in terms of material and cognitive accessibility. The third question is to determine what is the implicit definitions of the concepts of body, illness and curing that e-health is based on. Indeed, if the body is essentially assimilated to a data-producing entity, then illness is defined as a malfunction that has to be repaired. This approach neglects the psychological dimension of the patient's “ill-being” which becomes subordinated to a mechanized medical act. It also paves the way for an enhancement of health, by empowering each individual as the administrator of her own “health capital”. Lastly, the fourth issue is a consequence of the former and addresses the loss of the language in the relationship between the patient and the practitioner and underlines the necessity to put words on a pathological state in the diagnosis process.