Document Type
Article
Abstract
The intersection of technology and healthcare will radically change the provision of healthcare services. The full extent of the changes cannot be known now, but the direction is clear: collection of voluminous data and tools powerful enough to analyze that data will facilitate the design of algorithms that will enable machines to make important decisions regarding diagnoses and treatments. In addition to the possible benefits, policymakers and scholars have focused on issues of privacy and potential bias. The potential for corruption of the design of healthcare algorithms has been ignored, but the potential for corruption is real and dangerous. This article shows how healthcare algorithms could be corrupted by pharmaceutical and medical device firms and examines the possibility that such corruption will occur. The article concludes that the likelihood, verging on certainty, of corruption requires transparent public review of healthcare algorithms. Privacy and bias are more comfortable subjects, but new technologies require new thinking if the benefits of algorithmic healthcare are to be enjoyed.
Recommended Citation
Philip M. Nichols,
Preventing the Corruption of Healthcare Algorithms,
1
Notre Dame J. on Emerging Tech.
478
(2020).