Index by author

A purposeful literature review of peer-reviewed and gray literature identified 4 broad thematic areas of digital health stewardship—strategic direction, policies and procedures, roles and responsibilities, and health service delivery—that need further research and development in order for digital health to be better positioned to positively impact low- and middle-income country health systems.

A purposeful literature review of peer-reviewed and gray literature identified 4 broad thematic areas of digital health stewardship—strategic direction, policies and procedures, roles and responsibilities, and health service delivery—that need further research and development in order for digital health to be better positioned to positively impact low- and middle-income country health systems.

Digital health interventions have the potential to improve the health workforce by supporting training, supervision, and communication. More evidence is needed on the effectiveness of interventions implemented at scale, including the return on investment, the effect of government and donor policies on scale up, and the role of the private sector.

Digital strategies have been formally recognized as a critical health systems strengthening strategy to help meet the Sustainable Development Goals and universal health coverage targets. This landscaping collection reviews multiple possible approaches across health system pillars, from digital referrals to decision support systems, identifying key knowledge gaps across these domains and recognizing the growth needed in the field to realize its full potential.

A purposeful literature review of peer-reviewed and gray literature identified 4 broad thematic areas of digital health stewardship—strategic direction, policies and procedures, roles and responsibilities, and health service delivery—that need further research and development in order for digital health to be better positioned to positively impact low- and middle-income country health systems.

Delivery of high-quality efficient health services is a cornerstone of the global agenda to achieve universal health coverage. Digital health interventions for service delivery, such as digital health-enhanced referral coordination and mobile clinical decision support systems, demonstrate considerable potential to improve the quality and comprehensiveness of care received by patients but require greater standardization and engagement of health workers at different levels of the health system for effective scale up.

The key milestones in the rise of digital health illustrate efforts to bridge gaps in the evidence base, a shifting focus to scale-up and sustainability, growing attention to the precise costing of these strategies, and an emergent implementation science agenda that better characterizes the ecosystem—the social, political, economic, legal, and ethical context that supports digital health implementation—necessary to take digital health approaches to scale.