%0 Journal Article
%T The Ethical Right to Remain Offline: A Policy Framework for Digital Refusal, Equivalent Access, and Continuity of Care in Patient-Centered Health Systems
%A Thomas Weber
%A Elena Rossi
%A Kwame Boateng
%A Li Chen
%J Asian Journal of Ethics in Health and Medicine
%@ 3108-5059
%D 2026
%V 6
%N 2
%R 10.51847/ronmpcdZOy
%P 126-135
%X Digital technologies increasingly mediate access to appointments, clinical communication, records, monitoring, and other healthcare functions. Their benefits, however, do not establish that patients should be required to participate digitally whenever health systems can deliver a service through digital channels. This normative policy analysis examines whether a patient may refuse a digital modality while retaining meaningful access to the underlying healthcare function. Using Prescriptive Design and Normative Policy Theory, the analysis distinguishes refusal of a delivery modality from refusal of care, and develops a function-based account of equivalent access. The central claim is conditional: health systems should preserve a practically usable non-digital pathway when making digital participation a condition of access would impose unjustified burdens, threaten continuity, or convert technological preference into an eligibility criterion for ordinary care. Equivalent access does not require identical delivery. Alternatives may legitimately differ in interface, timing, workflow, or staffing when essential clinical functions, safety, reasonable timeliness, and continuity remain protected. Digital support and navigation remain important, but assistance should expand genuine choice rather than become compulsory remediation before a patient can obtain care through another channel. The resulting policy position is therefore neither digital-resistant nor technology-neutral in an absolute sense. It requires health systems to justify modality-dependent differences according to the healthcare function at stake, the burdens imposed on patients, clinical risk, continuity consequences, and feasible institutional alternatives.
%U https://smerpub.com/article/the-ethical-right-to-remain-offline-a-policy-framework-for-digital-refusal-equivalent-access-and-uyxf0vufxlom1oc