Digital Transformation Of Health Research Articles

The Effect of the COVID-19 Pandemic on Digital Health-Seeking Behavior: Big Data Interrupted Time-Series Analysis of Google Trends.

Due to the emergency responses early in the COVID-19 pandemic, the use of digital health in health care increased abruptly. However, it remains unclear whether this introduction was sustained in the long term, especially with patients being able to decide between digital and traditional health services once the latter regained their functionality throughout the COVID-19 pandemic. We aim to understand how the public interest in digital health changed as proxy for digital health-seeking behavior and to what extent this change was sustainable over time. We used an interrupted time-series analysis of Google Trends data with break points on March 11, 2020 (declaration of COVID-19 as a pandemic by the World Health Organization), and December 20, 2020 (the announcement of the first COVID-19 vaccines). Nationally representative time-series data from February 2019 to August 2021 were extracted from Google Trends for 6 countries with English as their dominant language: Canada, the United States, the United Kingdom, New Zealand, Australia, and Ireland. We measured the changes in relative search volumes of the keywords online doctor, telehealth, online health, telemedicine, and health app. In doing so, we capture the prepandemic trend, the immediate change due to the announcement of COVID-19 being a pandemic, and the gradual change after the announcement. Digital health search volumes immediately increased in all countries under study after the announcement of COVID-19 being a pandemic. There was some variation in what keywords were used per country. However, searches declined after this immediate spike, sometimes reverting to prepandemic levels. The announcement of COVID-19 vaccines did not consistently impact digital health search volumes in the countries under study. The exception is the search volume of health app, which was observed as either being stable or gradually increasing during the pandemic. Our findings suggest that the increased public interest in digital health associated with the pandemic did not sustain, alluding to remaining structural barriers. Further building of digital health capacity and developing robust digital health governance frameworks remain crucial to facilitating sustainable digital health transformation.

A full-STAC remedy for global digital health transformation: open standards, technologies, architectures and content

Abstract The global digital health ecosystem is project-centric: point solutions are developed for vertical health programs and financed through vertical funding allocations. This results in data fragmentation and technology lock-in, compromising health care delivery. A convergence of trends enabled by interoperability and digital governance makes possible a shift towards person-focused health. Together, open Standards, open Technologies, open Architectures and open Content represent a next-generation ‘full-STAC’ remedy for digital health transformation. Local developers and implementers can avoid reinventing the wheel, and instead build digital tools suited to local needs—where data travels with an individual over time, evidence-based practice is easily integrated, and insights are gleaned from harmonized data. This is the culmination of the vision endorsed by 194 WHO Member States in the Global Strategy on Digital Health 2020 to 2025.

Questões da saúde digital para o SUS: a “saúde móvel” e a automação algorítmica do saber-poder da medicina

Abstract The current pandemic has accelerated digital health transformation. One of its faces refers to the progressive use of mobile applications dedicated to care, disease prevention, and health promotion - e.g., mHealth. However, many gaps in the knowledge and questions about digital health to support its use and implementation persist in the scope of Public Health. With that in mind, this study aims to contribute to their assistance, social, political, legal, and ethical characterizations and analyses. The hypothesis we intend to test is that the digital transformation of health care leads, for better or for worse, to the algorithmic automation of the knowledge-power of medicine. To conduct this study, we carried out an extensive literature review and investigated and described mHealth apps based on the critical studies of digital health proposed by Deborah Lupton.

A Systematic Approach in Developing Management Workforce Readiness for Digital Health Transformation in Healthcare.

The COVID-19 pandemic has sped up digital health transformation across the health sectors to enable innovative health service delivery. Such transformation relies on competent managers with the capacity to lead and manage. However, the health system has not adopted a holistic approach in addressing the health management workforce development needs, with many hurdles to overcome. The objectives of this paper are to present the findings of a three-step approach in understanding the current hurdles in developing a health management workforce that can enable and maximize the benefits of digital health transformation, and to explore ways of overcoming such hurdles. A three-step, systematic approach was undertaken, including an Australian digital health policy documentary analysis, an Australian health service management postgraduate program analysis, and a scoping review of international literatures. The main findings of the three-step approach confirmed the strategies required in developing a digitally enabled health management workforce and efforts in enabling managers in leading and managing in the digital health space. With the ever-changing landscape of digital health, leading and managing in times of system transformation requires a holistic approach to develop the necessary health management workforce capabilities and system-wide capacity. The proposed framework, for overall health management workforce development in the digital health era, suggests that national collaboration is necessary to articulate a more coordinated, consistent, and coherent set of policy guidelines and the system, policy, educational, and professional organizational enablers that drive a digital health focused approach across all the healthcare sectors, in a coordinated and contextual manner.

Evaluating Digital Health Capability at Scale Using the Digital Health Indicator.

Background Health service providers must understand their digital health capability if they are to drive digital transformation in a strategic and informed manner. Little is known about the assessment and benchmarking of digital maturity or capability at scale across an entire jurisdiction. The public health care system across the state of Queensland, Australia has an ambitious 10-year digital transformation strategy. Objective The aim of this research was to evaluate the digital health capability in Queensland to inform digital health strategy and investment. Methods The Healthcare Information and Management Systems Society Digital Health Indicator (DHI) was used via a cross-sectional survey design to assess four core dimensions of digital health transformation: governance and workforce; interoperability; person-enabled health; and predictive analytics across an entire jurisdiction simultaneously. The DHI questionnaire was completed by each health care system ( n = 16) within Queensland in February to July 2021. DHI is scored 0 to 400 and dimension score is 0 to 100. Results The results reveal a variation in DHI scores reflecting the diverse stages of health care digitization across the state. The average DHI score across sites was 143 (range 78–193; SD35.3) which is similar to other systems in the Oceania region and global public systems but below the global private average. Governance and workforce was on average the highest scoring dimension (x̅= 54), followed by interoperability (x̅ = 46), person-enabled health (x̅ = 36), and predictive analytics (x̅ = 30). Conclusion The findings were incorporated into the new digital health strategy for the jurisdiction. As one of the largest single simultaneous assessments of digital health capability globally, the findings and lessons learnt offer insights for policy makers and organizational managers.

Yapay Zeka, Kritik ve Klinik: Nörobilim Araştırmaları Perspektifinden Toplum, Teşhis ve Tedavi

Bu makalede, yapay zeka araştırma ve uygulamaları bağlamında ortaya çıkmakta olan sağlıkta dijital dönüşüm meselesinin, insan toplumları ile zeki makinaların bu güncel etkileşimi yoluyla üretmekte olduğu yeni toplumsal perspektif incelenmektedir. Bu sorunsalın incelenmesi vasıtasıyla teşhis ve tedavi süreçlerinin günümüzdeki biçimlenişinin toplumsal değişim bakımından ne ifade ettiğini anlayabilmek amaçlanmaktadır. Ana sorunsalı çözümlemek üzere teorik bir çerçeve olarak nörobilim araştırmaları açısından konuya yaklaşılmıştır. Söz konusu teorik çerçeve, nörobilim araştırmalarındaki organik sinir ağlarının yapısını, yapay zeka çalışmalarında yapay sinir ağlarını geliştirmekte kullanan, bağlantılar ve etkileşimler üzerine sosyal göndermeleri de bulunan bir bakış açısıdır. Bu bakış açısı aynı zamanda makalenin, yaşamın bağlantısal bütünlüğü olarak tanımlanan fikirsel temelini oluşturmaktadır. Bu fikirsel temeli açıklayabilmek üzere kritik ve klinik kavramları ile araştırma amacında yer bulan teşhis ve tedavi süreçlerinin yeniden biçimlenişi, birbirine ilişkilendirmek suretiyle yöntemsel bir işleyiş geliştirilmiştir. Sağlıkta dönüşümün yeni bilimsel ve toplumsal koşullarıyla kavranabilmesi, dijitalleşen toplumu tıp açısından çözümleyebilmek için önem arz etmektedir. Bağlantısallık temelli bir toplumsallık içinde gerçekleşen bu dönüşümün, sağlık alanında dijitalleşme açısından insanın ve teknolojinin bir araya geldiği yeni bir toplumsallığın ipuçlarını sunan bir bileşim olduğu tespit edilmiştir.

Agile Software Development in Healthcare: A Synthetic Scoping Review

Even though software can be found everywhere, software development has encountered many problems, resulting in the emergence of new alternative development paradigms. Among them, agile approaches are the most popular. While much research has been published about agile software development (ASD) in general, there is a lack of documented knowledge about its use in healthcare. Consequently, it is not clear how ASD is used in healthcare, how it performs, and what the reasons are for not using it. To fill this gap, we performed a quantitative and qualitative knowledge synthesis of the research literature harvested from Scopus and Web of Science databases, employing the triangulation of bibliometrics and thematic analysis to answer the research question What is state of the art in using ASD in the healthcare sector? Results show that the research literature production trend is positive. The most productive countries are leading software development countries: the United States, China, the United Kingdom, Canada, and Germany. The research is mainly published in health informatics source titles. It is focused on improving the software process, quality of healthcare software, reduction of development resources, and general improvement of healthcare delivery. More research has to be done on scaling agile approaches to large-scale healthcare software development projects. Despite barriers, ASD can improve software development in healthcare settings and strengthen cooperation between healthcare and software development professionals. This could result in more successful digital health transformation and consequently more equitable access to expert-level healthcare, even on a global level.

Changing the research paradigm for digital transformation in healthcare delivery.

The growing focus on healthcare transformation (i.e., new healthcare delivery models) raises interesting issues related to research design, methodology, and funding. More than 20 years have passed since the Institute of Medicine first called for the transition to digital health with a focus on system-wide change. Yet progress in healthcare delivery system change has been painfully slow. A knowledge gap exists; research has been inadequate and critical information is lacking. Despite calls by the National Academies of Science, Engineering, and Medicine for convergent, team-based transdisciplinary research with societal impact, the preponderance of healthcare research and funding continues to support more traditional siloed discipline research approaches. The lack of impact on healthcare delivery suggests that it is time to step back and consider differences between traditional science research methods and the realities of research in the domain of transformational change. The proposed new concepts in research design, methodologies, and funding are a needed step to advance the science. The Introduction looks at the growing gap in expectations for transdisciplinary convergent research and prevalent practices in research design, methodologies, and funding. The second section summarizes current expectations and drivers related to digital health transformation and the complex system problem of healthcare fragmentation. The third section then discusses strengths and weaknesses of current research and practice with the goal of identifying gaps. The fourth section introduces the emerging science of healthcare delivery and associated research methodologies with a focus on closing the gaps between research and translation at the frontlines. The final section concludes by proposing new transformational science research methodologies and offers evidence that suggests how and why they better align with the aims of digital transformation in healthcare delivery and could significantly accelerate progress in achieving them. It includes a discussion of challenges related to grant funding for non-traditional research design and methods. The findings have implications broadly beyond healthcare to any research that seeks to achieve high societal impact.

The Impact of Digital Health Transformation Driven by COVID-19 on Nursing Practice: Systematic Literature Review.

BackgroundThe COVID-19 pandemic has accelerated the uptake of digital health innovations due to the availability of various technologies and the urgent health care need for treatment and prevention. Although numerous studies have investigated digital health adoption and the associated challenges and strategies during the pandemic, there is a lack of evidence on the impact on the nursing workforce.ObjectiveThis study aims to identify the impact of digital health transformation driven by COVID-19 on nurses.MethodsThe online software Covidence was used to follow the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses (PRISMA) protocol. Relevant scientific health and computing databases were searched for papers published from January 2020 to November 2021. Using the 8D sociotechnical approach for digital health in health care systems, the papers were analyzed to identify gaps in applying digital health in nursing practice.ResultsIn total, 21 papers were selected for content analysis. The analysis identified a paucity of research that quantifies the impact of the digital health transformation on nurses during the pandemic. Most of the initiatives were teleconsultation, followed by tele–intensive care unit (tele-ICU), and only 1 (5%) study explored electronic medical record (EMR) systems. Among the sociotechnical elements, the human-related factor was the most explored and the system measurement was the least studied item.ConclusionsThe review identified a significant gap in research on how implementing digital health solutions has impacted nurses during the COVID-19 pandemic. This gap needs to be addressed by further research to provide strategies for empowering the nursing workforce to be actively involved in digital health design, development, implementation, use, and evaluation.

Transformation of Digital Health Care Environment: A Solution for Pandemic

The epidemic is a doorway. It has created a new portal that involves re-defining of living styles, working habits, health care, and socialization among people and nonhuman species. The World health organization has announced publically that novel coronavirus as a pandemic. The problem is to overcome the situation of this pandemic which involves the social distancing issues, by transforming the conventional medical health care systems to digital health care system. Post pandemic demands a fundamental change of healthcare systems that have the abilities to handle those issues. Meanwhile, as the pandemic becomes more severe, the most important objective is the paradigm shift in conventional health systems to combat the pandemic by purposing the taxonomy on the basis of digital technologies. Thus, an Artificial intelligence (AI) and Internet of things (IoT) based digital healthcare system model is proposed. Moreover, a thorough investigation is conducted, ensuring in a timely guide to the possibilities of digital health transformation as a current and future response to pandemic issues.

Using COMPASS (Context Optimisation Model for Person-Centred Analysis and Systematic Solutions) Theory to Augment Implementation of Digital Health Solutions.

Digital health research is an emerging discipline that requires easy-to-understand theoretical frameworks and implementation models for digital health providers in health and social care settings. The COVID-19 pandemic has heightened the demand for digital health discipline-specific instruction on how to manage evidence-based digital health transformation. Access to the use of these models guarantees that digital health providers can investigate phenomena using safe and suitable approaches and methods to conduct research and identify answers to challenges and problems that arise in health and social care settings. The COMPASS theory is designed to aid transformation of health and social care environments. A navigational rose of primary quadrants is divided by four main compass points, with person-centred care being central to the philosophy. Two axes produce Cartesian planes that intersect to form a box plot, which can be used to discover human and physical resource weightings to augment digital health research design and implementation. A third continuum highlights stakeholders’ capabilities, which are critical for any multidisciplinary study. The COMPASS mnemonic guides end users through the process of design, development, implementation, evaluation, and communication of digital health transformations. The theory’s foundations are presented and explained in context of the ‘new normal’ of health and social care delivery.

Transducer Technologies for Biosensors and Their Wearable Applications.

The development of new biosensor technologies and their active use as wearable devices have offered mobility and flexibility to conventional western medicine and personal fitness tracking. In the development of biosensors, transducers stand out as the main elements converting the signals sourced from a biological event into a detectable output. Combined with the suitable bio-receptors and the miniaturization of readout electronics, the functionality and design of the transducers play a key role in the construction of wearable devices for personal health control. Ever-growing research and industrial interest in new transducer technologies for point-of-care (POC) and wearable bio-detection have gained tremendous acceleration by the pandemic-induced digital health transformation. In this article, we provide a comprehensive review of transducers for biosensors and their wearable applications that empower users for the active tracking of biomarkers and personal health parameters.

People, process and technology: A model for digital transformation of healthcare

COVID-19 has brought forward unprecedented challenges for healthcare systems worldwide. As healthcare moves into a state of COVID-19 recovery, we must reflect on lessons learned from the COVID-19 pandemic to create a more resilient future. One of the most critical outcomes this pandemic has highlighted, is the role of digital technology and digital health in transforming health care services. We suggest that by focusing on people, processes and technologies, healthcare systems can not only recover from the impact of COVID-19, but also transform healthcare from the traditional disease management system of today into the post pandemic health system of tomorrow, one that is modernised to align with the needs of the populations that health systems serve. Currently, health care systems are predominantly transactional, delivering care focused on disease management to restore health and/or manage acute health conditions. A digital health ecosystem offers a strategy to realise the full health potential of every human everywhere, from the smallest village to the most complex health care environments in health systems. Digital health ecosystems identify and track progress towards health goals, tracking outcomes and health risks at the individual and population level, which informs care approaches that are personalised to people and populations and are focused on mitigating risks in order to support and sustain health and wellness. The sustainability of healthcare systems and the health of global populations will be influenced by the rate of adoption and scalability of digital health. This paper will examine digital health transformation as a strategy to overcome the challenges health systems are facing and to advance the sustainability of health systems globally.

Commercialization Challenges and Approaches for Digital Health Transformation

Commercialization Challenges and Approaches for Digital Health Transformation

Open Debates Conducive for Vaccination Rate Flatlines: A Scoping Review and Convergent Cross Mapping.

COVID-19 pandemic is fueling digital health transformation—accelerating innovations of digital health services, surveillance, and interventions, whereas hastening social contagion of deliberate infodemic. The USA and many other countries are experiencing a resurgent wave of the COVID-19 pandemic with vaccination rate slowdown, making policymaking fraught with challenges. Political leaders and scientists have publicly warned of a “pandemic of the unvaccinated,” reinforcing their calls for citizens to get jabs. However, some scientists accused elites of stigmatizing the unvaccinated people and undermining the moral pillars of public health. Following the PRISMA-ScR guidelines, we first reviewed the nuances of stakeholders involved in the ongoing debates and revealed the potential consequences of divisive pronouncements to provide perspectives to reframe extensible discussions. Then, we employed the convergent cross mapping (CCM) model to reveal the uncharted knock-on effects of the contentious tsunami in a stakeholders-oriented policymaking framework, coupled with rich metadata from the GDELT project and Google Trends. Our experimental findings suggest that current news coverage may shape the mindsets of the vaccines against the unvaccinated, thereby exacerbating the risk of dualistic antagonism in algorithmically infused societies. Finally, we briefly summarized how open debates are conducive to increasing vaccination rates and bolstering the outcomes of impending policies for pandemic preparedness.

Precision Public Health for Non-communicable Diseases: An Emerging Strategic Roadmap and Multinational Use Cases.

Non-communicable diseases (NCDs) remain the largest global public health threat. The emerging field of precision public health (PPH) offers a transformative opportunity to capitalize on digital health data to create an agile, responsive and data-driven public health system to actively prevent NCDs. Using learnings from digital health, our aim is to propose a vision toward PPH for NCDs across three horizons of digital health transformation: Horizon 1—digital public health workflows; Horizon 2—population health data and analytics; Horizon 3—precision public health. This perspective provides a high-level strategic roadmap for public health practitioners and policymakers, health system stakeholders and researchers to achieving PPH for NCDs. Two multinational use cases are presented to contextualize our roadmap in pragmatic action: ESP and RiskScape (USA), a mature PPH platform for multiple NCDs, and PopHQ (Australia), a proof-of-concept population health informatics tool to monitor and prevent obesity. Our intent is to provide a strategic foundation to guide new health policy, investment and research in the rapidly emerging but nascent area of PPH to reduce the public health burden of NCDs.

Toward a Learning Health Care System: A Systematic Review and Evidence-Based Conceptual Framework for Implementation of Clinical Analytics in a Digital Hospital.

Objective A learning health care system (LHS) uses routinely collected data to continuously monitor and improve health care outcomes. Little is reported on the challenges and methods used to implement the analytics underpinning an LHS. Our aim was to systematically review the literature for reports of real-time clinical analytics implementation in digital hospitals and to use these findings to synthesize a conceptual framework for LHS implementation. Methods Embase, PubMed, and Web of Science databases were searched for clinical analytics derived from electronic health records in adult inpatient and emergency department settings between 2015 and 2021. Evidence was coded from the final study selection that related to (1) dashboard implementation challenges, (2) methods to overcome implementation challenges, and (3) dashboard assessment and impact. The evidences obtained, together with evidence extracted from relevant prior reviews, were mapped to an existing digital health transformation model to derive a conceptual framework for LHS analytics implementation. Results A total of 238 candidate articles were reviewed and 14 met inclusion criteria. From the selected studies, we extracted 37 implementation challenges and 64 methods employed to overcome such challenges. We identified common approaches for evaluating the implementation of clinical dashboards. Six studies assessed clinical process outcomes and only four studies evaluated patient health outcomes. A conceptual framework for implementing the analytics of an LHS was developed. Conclusion Health care organizations face diverse challenges when trying to implement real-time data analytics. These challenges have shifted over the past decade. While prior reviews identified fundamental information problems, such as data size and complexity, our review uncovered more postpilot challenges, such as supporting diverse users, workflows, and user-interface screens. Our review identified practical methods to overcome these challenges which have been incorporated into a conceptual framework. It is hoped this framework will support health care organizations deploying near-real-time clinical dashboards and progress toward an LHS.

Digital health transformation in Saudi Arabia: A cross-sectional analysis using Healthcare Information and Management Systems Society' digital health indicators.

BackgroundThe digital revolution has had a huge impact on healthcare around the world. Digital technology could dramatically improve the accuracy of diagnosis, treatment, health outcomes, efficiency of care, and workflow of healthcare operations. Using health information technology will bring major improvements in patient outcomes.PurposeThis study aims to measure the readiness for digital health transformation at different hospitals in the Eastern Province, Saudi Arabia in relation to Saudi Vision 2030 based on the four dimensions adopted by the Healthcare Information and Management Systems Society: person-enabled health, predictive analytics, governance and workforce, and interoperability.MethodsThe study was conducted with a cross-sectional design using data collected through an online questionnaire from 10 healthcare settings, the questionnaire consists of the four digital health indicators. The survey was developed by Healthcare Information and Management Systems Society for the purpose of assessing the level of digital maturity in healthcare settings.ResultsTen healthcare facilities in the Eastern Province, both private and governmental, were included in the study. The highest total scores for digital health transformation were reported in private healthcare facilities (median score for private facilities = 77, public facilities = 71). The ‘governance and workforce’ was the most implemented dimension among the healthcare facilities in the study (median = 80), while the dimension that was least frequently implemented was predictive analytics (median score = 70). In addition, tertiary hospitals scored the least in digital transformation readiness (median = 74) compared to primary and secondary healthcare facilities in the study.ConclusionThe results of the study show that private healthcare facilities scored higher in digital health transformation indicators. These results will be useful for promoting policymakers’ understanding of the level of digital health transformation in the Eastern Province and for the creation of a strategic action plan.

Digitalised Health for An Ageing Society: China’s Regulatory Approaches to Health Data Protection in the Tide of Digital Health Transformation

Digitalised Health for An Ageing Society: China’s Regulatory Approaches to Health Data Protection in the Tide of Digital Health Transformation

Driving digital health transformation in hospitals: a formative qualitative evaluation of the English Global Digital Exemplar programme

BackgroundThere is currently a strong drive internationally towards creating digitally advanced healthcare systems through coordinated efforts at a national level. The English Global Digital Exemplar (GDE) programme is a large-scale...