The World Innovation Summit for Health (WISH), an initiative of Qatar Foundation (QF), has announced publication of a report on the Ethics of AI in healthcare, exploring some of the most widely adopted practices of AI in healthcare and emphasising the associated ethical challenges, particularly as they relate to the question of medical accountability.
The report will be published ahead of WISH 2024, which takes place on November 13-14 at the Qatar National Convention Centre, Doha, and will form the basis of discussions at the November event around the ethical implications of an increase in the use of AI in healthcare.
While ethical considerations in general will feature in the report, particular emphasis will be given to exploring the relationship between AI and healthcare from an Islamic perspective.
Dr Mohammed Ghaly, Professor of Islam and Biomedical Ethics and Head of the Research Center for Islamic Legislation and Ethics (CILE) College of Islamic Studies (CIS), at QF’s Hamad Bin Khalifa University (HBKU), will act as lead author of the report.
Speaking at a panel discussion at the 17th World Congress of Bioethics in Doha, Qatar on The Role of Ethics in AI-Driven Healthcare, he confirmed that AI in healthcare will be one of the main topics featured at WISH 2024 and announced the new report.
Dr Ghaly said: “Both secular and religious moral traditions need to grapple with serious ethical challenges surrounding the use of AI in healthcare, including unequal access to this technology, privacy and data protection, obtaining informed consent, and how these elements would relate to the long-held set of values and etiquettes governing the patient-physician relationship.
“At the very centre is the question of accountability: who bears responsibility for errors when AI systems increasingly influence clinical decisions and patient outcomes? Our report will provide policy recommendations for how we can address these concerns, which influence the ethical deliberations on the patient-physician relationship in the age of AI-enabled healthcare.”
The application of AI in healthcare has fundamentally revolutionised the medical landscape, impacting areas such as electronic medical records (EMR), imaging, laboratory diagnostics, treatment methodologies, drug discovery, the provision of preventative and precision medicine and the extensive analysis of biological data. Despite the significant progress in integrating AI into healthcare practices, there are many challenges to the ethical management of these technologies. This issue of accountability is also compounded by the complexity and opacity of AI algorithms, which can obscure the decision-making process and diffuse blame.
Maha El Akoum, Manager of Policy and Content at WISH, said: “As adoption of AI in healthcare continues at pace, how we regulate it to ensure medical practice remains ethical and equitable becomes crucial. WISH is therefore taking a leading role, working with our colleagues at HBKU, to address this pressing issue, which is essential to fostering trust and ensuring ethical integrity. We very much look forward to publishing the report ahead of WISH 2024 and to the valuable discussions that the report will prompt at our November summit.”
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