Ethical Implications of Autonomous Robotics in Patient Monitoring and End-of-Life Care

Abstract

Abstract
The advent of increasingly autonomous robotic systems for patient monitoring and end-of-life (EOL) care poses significant ethical, legal, technical and organizational challenges for healthcare delivery. Such systems promise improvements in continuous monitoring, early detection of clinical deterioration, resource optimization, and enhanced access to care. At the same time, they raise fundamental questions regarding patient autonomy, dignity, human supervision, accountability, fairness, data governance, and the meaning of human care in final-phase lifecycles. This article presents a systematic and integrative examination of the ethical implications of deploying autonomous robotics in patient-monitoring paradigms and end-of-life care settings. We first review the technological landscape of autonomous robotics in healthcare, then conduct an extended literature review of ethical frameworks and empirical studies. We then articulate the main ethical domains (autonomy & dignity; beneficence/non-maleficence; justice; accountability & liability; data/privacy; human-machine relationality) in the context of monitoring and EOL care. We examine domain-specific applications (continuous monitoring in acute and home settings; palliative robotics; decision aids) and associated ethical trade-offs. Finally, we discuss governance, regulatory and design recommendations, and propose a research agenda. We conclude that while autonomous robotics hold considerable promise, successful and ethically robust adoption demands a human-centred, socially embedded, multi-stakeholder approach with explicit ethical governance and situational sensitivity.