Staying Connected? Revaluing ‘Relationship Goods’ in Digital Health Ecologies

As the use of digital information technologies has grown and transformed health care practices and ecologies, concerns have been raised about the implications for health care relationships. But it is no simple matter to pin down what makes health care relationships good and valuable, nor to assess whether and how digitalisation changes this. 'Relationship goods' such as care, compassion and respect are conceptually and practically complex. Longstanding models based on assumptions of dyadic relationships between individual health care practitioners and patients are no longer fully fit for purpose. This paper makes a case for re-thinking health care relationships to reflect the ongoing shift to digital health care ecologies. It outlines some of the key questions and considerations that will need to be addressed to support more rigorous evaluations of the implications of digital technologies and to better guide future design and health care improvement work. It illustrates some of the resources that exist within contemporary philosophy and ethics to support this agenda and calls for collaborative interdisciplinary working to investigate and help preserve the value of health care relationships through ongoing change.