4D PICTURE – Design-based data-driven decision-support tools for improving cancer care

The 4D PICTURE (Design-based Data-Driven Decision-support Tools:  Producing Improved Cancer Outcomes Through User-Centred Research) project aims to improve decision aids that support cancer patients in making complex treatment choices. Existing decision aids rarely take into account quality of life or individual preferences, and their use in clinical practice remains limited. To achieve truly person-centered cancer care, a multidisciplinary team from eight countries  will develop decision aids and conversation guides for patients with breast cancer, prostate cancer or melanoma. The team wants to better predict treatment outcomes by developing innovative algorithms and integrating patients‘ experiences, values and preferences with artificial intelligence-based models. The EU Horizon Europe project 4D PICTURE will be conducted by a  consortium of 16 organizations from 8 countries and is coordinated by the Erasmus University Medical Center (Erasmus MC) in Rotterdam, Netherlands.

Together with ethicists at Erasmus MC (lead: Prof. Maartje Schermer), the research group of Prof. Alena Buyx at the Institute for History and Ethics of Medicine at the Technical University of Munich (TUM) leads the work package (WP7) on ethics in 4D PICTURE. The objective of WP7 is to guarantee the development of ethically and socially responsible data-driven decision-support tools by integrating social and ethical considerations in the process. We aim to use an embedded ethics approach to the development of data-driven tools, supplemented with methods that have been developed in empirical bioethics and bioethical ‘parallel research’. This approach aims to integrate ethical and social considerations into the entire development process, to ensure that the new technologies (i.e. the AI-based conversation tools) are ethically and socially responsible, enhance health and well-being, do no unintended harm and contribute to health equality. To achieve this, embedded ethicists will be integrated into the development process from the beginning and will follow the whole process from development to implementation. These ethicist will work closely together with other WP’s to anticipate, identify and address the ethical and societal issues that arise during the research and development trajectory.

Project website: https://4dpicture.eu/