Digital capitalism and the e-health revolution

Abstract

This paper discusses the challenges posed by the advent of e-health. To contextualise the phenomenon, it defines the environment in which it arises: digital capitalism. The predatory dynamics of this social structure are likely to transform medical practice. Contemporary medicine seems to be poised between a renewed attention to the patient and their dignity – perspective of the medical humanities – and the reduction of the patient to a mere object of study and discipline – biomedicine. By favouring the quantification of the patient and a depersonalising approach, digital medicine risks breaking the bond between these two sides of medicine. At the same time, the development of medical technologies in a capitalist environment poses other risks that need to be weighed up: from the gratuitous appropriation of personal data to the creation of a discriminatory and classist healthcare system. Only by openly addressing these problems will it be possible to integrate these new technologies in a democratic way that promotes the common good.