Key Idea: In health, locate the human decision. A system that proposes to a clinician is a different object from one that decides — and a system that formally proposes can decide in practice.
Paper 1
- Part a: outline propose against decide, or identify body data
- Part b: explain a risk of automated triage
- Part c: evaluate image analysis, wearables or monitoring
Paper 2
- Q1 and Q2: read a health chart and evaluate the evidence
- Q3: compare sources on consent and monitoring
- Q4: synthesise sources on health technology
Everywhere else
- AI: accuracy by group is the same argument
- Identity: body data is identity that cannot be reset
- HL 5.1: ageing populations are the demand behind all of this
Five steps, five different questions
| Step | The question it raises |
|---|---|
| Symptom noticed | Who notices, and what prompts them |
| Reaching care | Who is excluded by device, connection or language |
| Triage | Who waits, and can they tell they were sorted? |
| Diagnosis | Does the system propose or decide? |
| Treatment | Who is responsible when it is wrong? |
An error is not a wrong label but a person waiting, and nobody sorted downwards is told they were sorted — so the delay looks like ordinary waiting from the inside.
The ladder of closeness to the body
Consent weakens as you go down
- Carried — a phone you can leave behind; refusing costs a convenience.
- Worn — a watch or monitor; continuous, and genuinely useful.
- Implanted — a pacemaker or pump; refusing costs your health.
- Neural — reads signals that were never a chosen behaviour.
Important: At the bottom of the ladder, agreement records the absence of an alternative rather than the presence of a choice — so limits on what may be collected protect better than consent does, because a limit ignores bargaining position.
Exam-style questions
Contrast the value of a wearable to a patient with its value to a health service.
🔒 Model answer plan
See the mark-by-mark plan — for / against / judgement, with marking guidance — in study mode.
Examine the consequences of collecting health data continuously rather than at appointments.
🔒 Model answer plan
See the mark-by-mark plan — for / against / judgement, with marking guidance — in study mode.
Quick check
The key health question Does the system propose to a person, or decide? An error in the second has no owner.
Why is an overall accuracy figure misleading? It hides much worse performance for groups barely present in the training data.
Why is body data different? It cannot be changed, is collected continuously, and reveals more than it appears to.
Two lines rising together Prove nothing on their own — the cause may run either way, or a third factor may move both.
Exam tips
- Name the step first — 'this sits at triage' — then analyse.
- Ask what refusing would have cost. It turns a consent answer into an analysis of power.
- Refuse both extremes on screens and wellbeing. Name mechanisms and who they reach.