Digital health at fifteen: more human (more needed)

• Main Authors: Kit Huckvale, C. Jason Wang, Azeem Majeed, Josip Car
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: BMC 2019-03-01
• Series: BMC Medicine
• Subjects: Digital health; eHealth; Person-centred care; Human factors; Ergonomics; Machine learning
• Online Access: http://link.springer.com/article/10.1186/s12916-019-1302-0

Abstract There is growing appreciation that the success of digital health – whether digital tools, digital interventions or technology-based change strategies – is linked to the extent to which human factors are considered throughout design, development and implementation. A shift in focus to individuals as users and consumers of digital health highlights the capacity of the field to respond to secular developments, such as the adoption of person-centred care and consumer health technologies. We argue that this project is not only incomplete, but is fundamentally ‘uncompletable’ in the face of a highly dynamic landscape of both technological and human challenges. These challenges include the effects of consumerist, technology-supported care on care delivery, the rapid growth of digital users in low-income and middle-income countries and the impacts of machine learning. Digital health research will create most value by retaining a clear focus on the role of human factors in maximising health benefit, by helping health systems to anticipate and understand the person-centred effects of technology changes and by advocating strongly for the autonomy, rights and safety of consumers.