AI-Driven Healthcare and the Limits of Medical Liability: Rethinking Patient Rights and Legal Accountability in Türkiye and the European Union

Abstract

Artificial intelligence (AI) is increasingly used in diagnosis, clinical decision support, patient monitoring, and treatment planning, but its integration complicates the allocation of legal responsibility when patients are harmed. This article examines whether the legal frameworks of Türkiye and the European Union adequately protect patients where clinical decisions are shaped by AI systems. Using comparative doctrinal legal analysis, it evaluates professional negligence, institutional duties, product liability, data protection, informed consent, and evidentiary barriers. It argues that physician-centred liability is insufficient when relevant knowledge, control, and preventive capacity are distributed among clinicians, healthcare institutions, technology providers, and regulators. The article develops the Distributed Accountability Framework for AI-Driven Healthcare (DAF-AIH), which maps responsibility across four dimensions—clinical, institutional, technological, and regulatory—and identifies meaningful human oversight, patient-centred transparency, and effective access to evidence as cross-cutting safeguards. The framework does not create automatic collective liability; it offers a structured method for tracing legally relevant duties, control, omissions, and causal contribution. The comparison highlights both the regulatory resources and unresolved remedial gaps in Türkiye and the EU.