Digital Health is the use of technology and computing in medicine and healthcare. The discipline examines how technological innovation and invention is being used to improve the healthcare we receive. In the broadest sense it can encompass any new digital development that has impacted healthcare, such as the adoption of personal computing. But in a narrower sense it is used to cover a number of specific technologies developed especially with healthcare purposes in mind, such as the development of personal health apps or digitally based therapeutic regimes. Basically, it encompasses how technology is being used to manage our personal health, prevent us from getting ill, or in helping us be treated once we are ill.
Digital Health is not only about new inventions and gadgets. New digital technologies have improved and enhanced the traditional doctor-patient experience. An excellent example is the digitization of patient records. The simple step of replacing hand written patient records with computerized records affects patient care. This is without necessarily the patient being aware of it, or there being a change in how the patient uses the health service. For example, accuracy is improved, data can be retrieved more easily, and patient information can be shared more easily between professionals providing care. A medical profession who is tasked with helping us can quickly and easily see health records without having to question us again. But the service patients receive appears to remain the same.
Can we formulate a definition for Digital Health, which encompasses how technological change is being used in healthcare? Attempts to formulate a definition were made as awareness grew that technology was impacting medicine and healthcare. Often such definitions reflect the main technological development at the time the definition was conceived. Thus, initially many names concentrated on the computing aspect of change. Such names included 'Information and Communication Technology in Medicine' or 'Information Technology in Medicine'.
From the late 1990's names emphasizing the Internet became more common as use of the Internet and World Wide Web expanded. Names such as 'Internet Medicine' or 'Web Medicine' became more common. Another common moniker which gained widespread acceptance was 'eHealth', electronic health, which was used to denote healthcare services provided electronically via the Internet (Eysenbach, 2001).
Then as mobile phone technology became widespread in the 2000's definitions concentrated more on this technological aspect. The name 'mHealth' is now widely used, and was initially defined as the use of mobile technology for healthcare purposes. The name mHealth is often attributed to Istepanian et al. (2007). However, the original remit of mHealth has widened as mobile technology has improved and the range of possibilities using such technologies has became more extensive. WHO (2018) defines mHealth as healthcare provided using all types of wireless devices; whether mobile phones, apps, or wearables.
The name Digital Health came about as an attempt to provide an all encompassing definition that included all these aspects of technological development. One of the first to use the name was Seth Frank in 2000, who said it was the combination of Internet based apps and media being used to improve medicine (Frank, 2000). Since that time use of the name Digital Health has become more widespread, partly because it all embracing and provides an umbrella term for eHealth, mHealth and other topics that do not fit easily elsewhere or stand well alone.
DEFINING DIGITAL HEALTH
What formal definitions of Digital Health exist? Meskó (2018) defined it as:
'The cultural transformation of how disruptive technologies that make digital, objective data available to both caregivers and patients leads to an equal level doctor-patient relationship with shared decision-making and the democratization of care.'
Rowlands (2019) saw Digital Health as a major new development, that was revolutionary in nature. Another more recent definition by Ronquillo et al. (2022) defined Digital Health as the:
'Use of information and communication technologies in medicine and other health professions to manage illnesses and health risks and to promote wellness.'
Fatehi et al. (2020) reviewed a range of definitions for Digital Health and found that the overwhelming emphasis of them was on the use of technology to aid healthcare, rather than on technological innovation itself. Perhaps an indication that Digital Health had become an accepted disciple came with the publication of the World Health Organization (WHO) documents on Digital Health in 2018 and 2019.
WHO (2019) defined Digital Health as:
'The combination of e-health ('the cost effective and secure use of ICTs for health and health-related fields') and m-health ('the provision of health services and information via mobile technologies') as well as emerging areas, such as the use of advanced computing sciences in big data, genomics and artificial intelligence.'
The name Digital Health is gaining in popularity. Here, in this text it is defined as:
'Digital Health is the use of technology to improve an individuals healthcare.'
This is an extract from the book Digital Health: How modern technology is changing medicine and healthcare.
Please cite as:
Walker, MD. 2024. Digital Health: How modern technology is changing medicine and healthcare. Sicklebrook publishing, Sheffield UK.
This can be purchased from Amazon, or the rest of the chapter can be read at researchgate.
What is Digital Health? Recognition Aspects of Digital Health Advantages and Disadvantages