Targeting ethical considerations tied to image-based mobile health diagnostic support specific to clinicians in low-resource settings: the Brocher proposition

Background: mHealth applications assist workflow, help move towards equitable access to care, and facilitate care delivery. They have great potential to impact care in low-resource countries, but have significant ethical concerns pertaining to patient autonomy, safety, and justice. Objective: To achieve consensus among stakeholders on how to address concerns pertaining to autonomy, safety, and justice among mHealth developers and users in low-resource settings, in particular for the application of image-based consultation for diagnostic support. Methods: A consensus approach was taken during a three-day workshop using a purposive sample of global mHealth stakeholders (n = 27) professionally and geographically spread. Throughout a series of introductory talks, group brainstorming, plenary reviews, and synthesis by the moderators, lists of actions were generated that address the concerns engendered by mHealth applications on autonomy, justice and safety, taking into account the development, implementation, and scale-up phases of an mHealth application lifecycle. Results: Several types of actions were recommended; key ones among them included building in risk mitigation measures from the development stage, establishing inclusive consultation processes, using open sources platform whenever possible, training all clinical users, and bearing in mind that the gold standard of care is face-to-face consultation with the patient. Recommendations of patient, community and health system participation and of governance were identified as cutting across the mHealth lifecycle. Conclusion: Priorities agreed-upon at the meeting echo those put forward concerning other domains and locations of application of mHealth. Those more forcefully articulated are the need to adopt and maintain participatory processes as well as promoting self-governance. They are expected to cut across the mHealth lifecycle and are prerequisites to the safeguard of autonomy, safety and justice.