What is Digital Health? Review of Definitions

Abstract

Digital technologies are transforming the health sector all over the world, however various aspects of this emerging field of science is yet to be properly understood. Ambiguity in the definition of digital health is a hurdle for research, policy, and practice in this field. With the aim of achieving a consensus in the definition of digital health, we undertook a quantitative analysis and term mapping of the published definitions of digital health. After inspecting 1527 records, we analyzed 95 unique definitions of digital health, from both scholar and general sources. The findings showed that digital health, as has been used in the literature, is more concerned about the provision of healthcare rather than the use of technology. Wellbeing of people, both at population and individual levels, have been more emphasized than the care of patients suffering from diseases. Also, the use of data and information for the care of patients was highlighted. A dominant concept in digital health appeared to be mobile health (mHealth), which is related to other concepts such as telehealth, eHealth, and artificial intelligence in healthcare.

Keywords: content analysis; definition; digital health; term mapping.