Background Given the increased use of technology in health care, both in extent and application, the importance of understanding the ethical implications of new health technologies increases. Profound insight into the possible ethical implications of new health technologies enhances the research and development of such technologies and the likelihood of eventual successful implementation in clinical practice. Objective This study aimed to gain an understanding of how and if researchers focused on health technologies describe the actual or possible ethical aspects of their research findings. Methods An established framework for scoping reviews was used to guide the methodology. Studies published in PubMed over the last 10 years were included if they study or refer to ethics in relation to health technology as defined by established frameworks. In total, 14,532 articles were screened, 692 were retained for full-text evaluation, and 227 were included for data extraction. Results In total, 250 (80.9%, N=309) studies were conducted in North America and Europe; literature review studies were dominant. Most studies (52.9%, 120/227) had no direct reference to any of the 4 basic ethical principles: beneficence, nonmaleficence, autonomy, and justice. In cases where studies referenced ethical theory, consequentialism dominated. Conclusions When research about technology and ethics is published, the predominant focus is on its intent rather than its actual effect on patients. This lack of insight is problematic considering the vast advancement of technology in which ethics cannot keep up with understanding and offer insights on addressing ethical issues. This finding has implications for practice, research, and education.

BACKGROUND Given the increased use of technology in healthcare, both in extent and application, the importance of understanding the ethical implications of new health technologies increases. Profound insight into the possible ethical implications of new health technologies enhances research and development of such technologies and the likelihood of eventual successful implementation in clinical practice. OBJECTIVE The objective of this study was to gain an understanding of how and if researchers focused on health technologies describing actual or possible ethical aspects of their research findings. METHODS An established framework for Scoping reviews was used to guide the methodology. Studies published in PubMed over the last ten years were included if studying or referring to ethics in relation to health technology as defined by established frameworks. In total, 14532 articles were screened, 692 were retained for full-text evaluation, and 227 were included for data extraction. RESULTS Most studies were conducted in North America and Europe; literature review studies were dominant. Most studies had no direct reference to any of the four basic ethical principles: beneficence, non-maleficence, autonomy, and justice. In those cases where studies referenced ethical theory, consequentialism dominated. CONCLUSIONS When research about technology is published, the predominant focus is on its intent rather than its actual effect on patients. This lack of insight is problematic considering the vast advancement of technology in which ethics cannot keep up with understanding and offer insights on addressing ethical issues. This finding has implications for practice, research, and education.

The exponential advancement of health technologies has led to an increasing need for awareness and critical thinking about the potential unintended consequences and ethical dilemmas that may arise from using new technologies. Unfortunately, many ethical issues arise post-implementation. Few researchers preemptively consider the ethical implications of health technologies. The current study located more than 24 million articles in PubMed that discussed common health technologies. Of these, 0.07% ( n = 17,816) articles deeply considered the technology's potential ethical implications. Critical thinking and ethics are the mainstays of nursing practice. Thus, critically thinking about the potential ethical implications of relevant technologies should be at the forefront of research; we contend that this is not common practice. We hope to shed light on this issue to remind researchers to think like nurses when researching new health technologies.