Digital health entails the use of computing and other technologies for radical improvements in the pathways of disease discovery, learning health sciences, diagnosis, monitoring and managing long-term conditions and chronic diseases, and, ultimately, care delivery including emergency care and timely interventions. Digital health promises to transform the traditional care delivery model by increasing its scalability, reducing unit and total cost of care, and, most importantly, improving the quality of care through use of real-time health and behavior data, enabling just-in-time “navigational cues” and interventions, as well as a continuum-of-care—models of superior quality when compared to the sporadic and reactive point-of-care system we employ today. Ultimately, digital health holds the promise for improving health outcomes and people’s quality of life.
This special issue will provide an update on the key developments and latest advances in digital health research and technology, emphasizing proactive and preventive health strategies and emerging models of care that are highly engaging for individuals and their communities.
The guest editors seek novel and original articles covering emerging issues in digital health, including (but not limited to):
- Co-designing active and healthy living
- Co-designing independent living and active and healthy aging
- Health navigation: empowerment, engagement and life-style guidance
- Preventive digital health fighting drug abuse (including food), obesity, stress, anxiety, self-harm, and social Isolation
- Generic and disease-specific Informatic Health Platforms
- Generic and disease-specific Cybernetic Health Platforms
- Digital Health Data: Personal Chronicles (Personicles), population digital health, privacy and other personal health data rights
- Healthy places: smart homes and healthy new town concepts
- Models of care delivery utilizing digital health
- The social and cultural appropriateness of digital health solutions
- Ethical frameworks for developing digital health solutions, products and services