ABSTRACT
Several advancements in different scientic and technological disciplines (e.g., nanotechnology, biotechnology, and information and communications technology [ICT]) appear to be promising for enabling an increasing number of medical technologies and devices appropriate for home and mobile applications. The trend to develop such medical technologies is stimulated by the recent developments in the dynamics of supply and demand of the healthcare sector. In this study, we will focus on one selected case, that of Body Area Networks (BAN) in health care (see Jones et al. 2007). The concept of BAN was rst coined by Zimmerman (1999) at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and IBM under the topic of Personal Area Networks (PAN) and has been further developed by other groups at Philips (van Dam et al. 2001) and by the MobiHealth team at the University of Twente and Fraunhofer (Jones et al. 2001). Although there might be a general consensus on the signicance of this concept for improving health practices in various domains, the level of its actual impact is still undened particularly in respect to its long-term implications. Therefore, this chapter will address the anticipation of aspects that will have an effect on the successful societal embedding of BAN technologies into the health-care system. To this end, we use the philosophy of constructive technology assessment and will utilize its tools to anticipate on ethical, legal, and societal implications of the concept of BAN in health-care settings.
