AI and Ethical Decision-Making in a Resource-Limited Health Care Environment
Project dates:
October 2020 – August 2025
Name of the PhD student:
Jamie Webb
Supervisors
Ewen Harrison - Usher Institute (Centre for Medical Informatics)
Sarah Cunningham Burley - Usher Institute (Centre for Biomedicine, Self and Society)
Michael Gill – Head of Philosophy (School of Philosophy, Psychology and Language Sciences)
Project aims:
This project aims to synthesise philosophical bioethics and public deliberative processes, to arrive at recommendations for the ethical use of AI in healthcare resource allocation.
Disciplines and subfields engaged:
Philosophical bioethics
Health care/medicine
Deliberative democracy studies
AI Ethics
Research themes:
Ethics of Algorithms
Algorithmic Transparency and Explainability
Ethics of Algorithmic Decision-Making
Emerging Technology, Health and Flourishing
Emerging Tech and Democratic Flourishing
Related outputs:
Publications (links open in another tab):
Healthcare resource allocation, machine learning, and distributive justice. Webb J. 2025. American Philosophical Quarterly 62 (1): 33–52.
Finding consensus on trust in AI in healthcare: recommendations from a panel of international experts. Starke G., Gille F., Termine A., Webb J., Facchini A., Ineca M. (forthcoming). Journal of Medical Internet Research.
Machine learning, healthcare resource allocation, and patient consent. Webb J. 2024. The New Bioethics, 1–22.
Effect of recipient age on prioritisation for liver transplantation in the UK: a population-based modelling study. Attia A., Webb J., Stutchfield BM. 2024. Lancet Healthy Longev, 5(5):e346-e355.
Where is the public in pandemic public policy?, Webb J, Manku K. 2024 in Pandemic and Beyond Volume 4 - Law and Ethics. Ed. Redhead, C. Manchester University Press.
How citizens could help government with emergency decisions in the next pandemic. The Conversation. 2023.
Is mpox an STI? The societal aspects and healthcare implications of a key question [version 2; peer review: 2 approved]. Garcia Iglesias J, Nagington M, Pickersgill M et al. Wellcome Open Res 2023, 7:252.
Artificial moral advisors: A new perspective from moral psychology, Yuxin Liu, Adam B. Moore, Jamie Webb and Shannon Vallor. AIES ’22: Proceedings of the 2022 AAAI/ACM Conference on AI, Ethics, and Society, 2022.
Ethical analysis of Conservative MPs’ opposition to covid-19 certification, Jamie Webb UK Pandemic Ethics Accelerator. December 21st 2021.
Pandemic Public Engagement: An Ethical Analysis, Jamie Webb, UK Pandemic Ethics Accelerator 2021.
Siblings and Discordant Eligibility for Gene Therapy Research: Considering Parental Requests for Non-Trial “Compassionate Use”, Jamie Webb, Lesha D. Shah and Alison Bateman-House, Clinical Ethics 16(4), 2021.
Living and dying with covid: resolving the hard questions of living with covid-19 – the need for public deliberation, Jamie Webb, Hugh Whitall, Pandemic Ethics Accelerator, 2021.
When it Comes to Covid Vaccination, the Terminally Ill Shouldn’t Be Forgotten — They Should Be Prioritized, Jamie Webb, Medium, 2021.
The Moderna Vaccine Story is a Cautionary Tale for Coronavirus Reporting, Jamie Webb, Bioethics Today, 2020.
Ethically Allocating COVID-19 Drugs via Pre-approval Access and Emergency Use Authorization, Jamie Webb, Lesha D. Shah and Holly Fernandez Lynch, The American Journal of Bioethics 20(9), 2020.
It’s time to make ClinicalTrials.gov a better tool for patients. Here’s how., Jamie Webb, STAT, 2020.
No Easy Answers in Allocating Unapproved COVID-19 Drugs Outside Clinical Trials, Jamie Webb, Lesha Shah and Holly Fernandez Lynch, The American Journal of Bioethics 20(9), 2020.
Putting placebo-controlled trials in developing countries to the interpersonal justifiability test, Jamie Webb, Developing World Bioethics 19(3), 2018.
Conference Presentations:
Co-organised the Postgraduate Bioethics Conference 2023 with Emma Nance at The University of Edinburgh, June 2023.
Other Outputs:
Invited talk: Distributive justice, machine learning and healthcare resource allocation.Medical Informatics Research Group, University of Edinburgh. Seminar series, 15th February 2024.
Invited talk: Trust, machine learning and healthcare resource allocation.‘Ethics of AI in healthcare’ conference, Newcastle University, 8th September 2023.
Deliberative facilitator, IPSOS Scotland and Scottish Government Citizens Jury on data sharing in the public sector, 2022-23.
