Aligning mission to digital health strategy in academic medical centers

Abstract

The strategies of academic medical centers arise from core values and missions that aim to provide unmatched clinical care, patient experience, research, education, and training. These missions drive nearly all activities. They should also drive digital health activities - and particularly now given the rapid adoption of digital health, marking one of the great transformations of healthcare; increasing pressures on health systems to provide more cost-effective care; the pandemic-accelerated funding and rise of well-funded new entrants and technology giants that provide more convenient forms of care; and a more favorable regulatory and reimbursement landscape to incorporate digital health approaches. As academic medical centers emerge from a pandemic-related reactionary digital health posture, where pressures to adopt more digital health technologies mount, a broad digital health realignment that leverages the strengths of such centers is required to accomplish their missions.

Fig. 1. Early telemedicine concept.

This is an early conception of telemedicine from Radio News, April 1924. (Radio News is a defunct American magazine, 1919–1971, of which the copyright has expired).

Fig. 2. Digital health within academic medical centers.

Organizational schema whereby traditional (white boxes) and digital health (gray boxes) components of the organization are delineated but work closely together toward a common mission.