The neglected role of technology in quality of care crisis

  • Saeedeh Babaii Visiting Fellow, University of Tubingen, Int. Center for Ethics in Science and Humanities IZEW. Tubingen, Germany.
  • Alireza Monajemi Associate Professor, Philosophy of Science and Technology Department, Institute for Humanities and Cultural Studies (IHCS), Tehran, Iran
Keywords: Philosophy of medicine; Medical technologies; The quality of care crisis; Borgmann; Life-world.

Abstract

The quality of care crisis (QCC) is one of the most crucial crises the modern medicine is confronting, as the existential and psychological needs of patients have not been addressed and satisfied. Several attempts have been made to find solutions for QCC, e.g., the Marcum's recommendation to make physicians virtuous. Most of the existing formulations for the QCC have regarded technology as one of the causes of this crisis and not part of its solution.

Although the authors agree with the role of technology in creating
the crisis of care to some extent, in this article we try to present the
crisis of care so that medical technology is an important part of its
solution. For this purpose, we analyzed QCC from the philosophical
perspectives of Husserl and Borgmann and put forward a novel
proposal to take account of technology in QCC. In the first step, it
is discussed that the role of technology in causing the crisis of care
is due to the gap between the techno-scientific world and the life-
world of the patients. This formulation shows that the crisis-causing role of technology is not inherent. In the second step, it is tried to find a way to integrate technology into the solution to the crisis. In the proposed reframing, designing and applying technologies based on focal things and practices make it possible to develop technologies that are caring and are able to mitigate QCC.

Published
2023-01-02
Section
Articles