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Ethical Issues in Technology Assessment: Conceptual Categories and Procedural Considerations

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  10 March 2009

Elizabeth Heitman
Elizabeth Heitman
Affiliation:
The University of Texas-Houston School of Public Health
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Abstract

The practice of health care technology assessment involves ethical considerations in all of its varied functions and techniques. Ethical issues in technology assessment can be grouped into the broad categories of normative concepts, diagnosis, prevention and therapy, research and the advancement of knowledge, and allocation of resources. Moreover, the ethics of the assessment process itself must be evaluated in terms of the integrity of the project's goals, procedures, and effects, and evaluators’ open and self-critical acknowledgment of their purposes. As a relatively new field, technology assessment can benefit from using a variety of analytic approaches as it works to develop its own methods for evaluating ethical issues related to technology.

Type
General Essays
Information
International Journal of Technology Assessment in Health Care , Volume 14 , Issue 3 , Summer 1998 , pp. 544 - 566
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1998

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