General Introduction

Digital health refers to using various technologies, including telehealth services, health information technology, and mobile health (mHealth), to improve communication between doctors and patients throughout healthcare systems. The breadth of digital health offers consumers greater access to and ownership over their information and allows doctors to comprehensively understand their patients’ health. Digital health technology has become more significant over time, particularly in light of the COVID-19 pandemic. Modern digital health solution improves relationships between patients and their doctors, expands preventive disease strategies, and shifts healthcare toward value-based treatment, increasing access to health information for patients and providers. Communication between systems and devices is possible. Medical professionals can better understand their patients’ health status as data can now be safely transferred between platforms. The tremendous transformation that will take healthcare to the next level will be led by cloud-based digital health solutions that exchange data. By enabling people to track their health and giving doctors easy access to patient data, digital health is predicted to stop the rising rates of various diseases. Digital health includes mobile technologies, telemedicine collaborations, wearables and sensors, big data, and artificial intelligence, amongst other interventions. Digital health provides an opportunity to address health system challenges if designed with the consideration of the end-user, proper evidence, and a goal for large-scale roll-out. It is, however, important to remember that digital health interventions can enhance the functions of the health systems but cannot replace the fundamental health systems building blocks of (i) service delivery, (ii) health workforce, (iii) health information systems, (iv) access to essential medicines, vaccines, and technology, (v) financing, and (vi) leadership/governance. Although digital health is still relatively new, consumers can take control of their health as healthcare services continue to shift to a digital paradigm. As a result, people of all generations will be better informed about their health and able to decide what kind of care they need.