Socio-technical platforms for care transformation: An integrative synthesis and conceptualization

Abstract

This study is at the intersection of two trends in healthcare, integrated care (IC) and digitalization. These advancements aim to mitigate challenges associated with the management of chronic and multimorbid conditions which form the bulk of healthcare expenditure. Rampant fragmentation in service provisioning and technological innovation result in inefficent and increasingly burdened healthcare systems. Addressing fragmentation, IC models show promise and stand to benefit greatly from emerging digital health platform solutions. However, these interventions are relatively nascent and lack comprehensive analysis. Therefore, this study explores these emerging solutions with an integrative literature review and a qualitative analysis, identifying 26 comprehensive platform solutions that enable coordination in chronic care ecosystems. The findings offer a detailed overview and an integrative synthesis that conceptualizes socio-technical solution architectures, integrating the elements of people, process, and technology within a multi-level IC framework. This sheds light on the complex orchestration needed for managing cross-provider solutions for chronic care, and it helps researchers and decision makers better understand the complexity and challenges of healthcare transformation. Development barriers and gaps for further research are also explored.