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The Ethics of Digital Health

Háskólinn í Reykjavík
Neuroinformatics
About this course

This course aims to equip students with a broad understanding of digital health, emphasizing not only technical skills but also ethical considerations and critical thinking when designing, developing, and implementing digital tools in healthcare settings. The main objective is to set the stage for digital health, in general, and to understand the impact of design, development, and use of digital tools within healthcare settings for optimization purposes, in particular. By the end of the course, the students will be able to illustrate introductory knowledge of digital health, encompassing design, development, and utilization of digital tools in healthcare settings, as demonstrated by their assignment, where the focus is to design a mobile application for a specific case as well as reflect on the ethical implications of working with artificial intelligence as an embedded part of healthcare.

The course instructor is Dr. Anna Sigridur Islind, a professor at the department of computer science at Reykjavik University. 

Contact: islind@ru.is

Learning outcomes
  • Define digital health and distinguish when emerging technologies can prove revolutionary.
  • For a given digital health application, discuss potential helpful as well as harmful aspects.
  • Evaluate the effectiveness and appropriateness of different manual processes that can be digitalized and use that to write a one-page project proposal.
  • Demonstrate skills in carving out a digital health application from a complex case on an individual basis.
  • Summarize conclusions according to their importance after peer-to-peer discussions of how digital health applications can be designed for healthcare purposes.
  • Demonstrate the ability to communicate ideas and information clearly and respectfully across disciplinary boundaries.
  • Define digital platforms and data-driven decision-making.
  • Give examples of ways in which artificial intelligence (AI) can be helpful and when it can be harmful to the healthcare of the future.
  • Summarize conclusions according to their importance after peer discussions on AI in digital health with a focus on ethics, drawbacks, and its potential.
  • Foster an ethical and responsible perspective in using digital tools within healthcare, emphasizing patient dignity and self-care.
  • Evaluate the effectiveness and appropriateness of artificial intelligence and data-driven decision-making.  
  • Turn narrative descriptions into numerical data that can be the basis for enhanced decision-making in a healthcare setting.
Prerequisites for participation

A bachelor’s degree and that the student is accepted to a master’s program at a NeurotechEU university.

Necessary language skill
English
Semester(s) in which the module takes place
Autumn 2026
Course level
Masters
Course start date
01 Sep 2026
Course end date
30 Nov 2026
Apply between
Application start date
01 Mar 2026
-
Application end date
31 May 2026
Teaching mode
Hybrid
Average workload
50-60 hours
Workload in ECTS
2
Person in charge of module
Anna Sigridur Islind
Email address
islind@ru.is