Skip to main page content
U.S. flag

An official website of the United States government

Dot gov

The .gov means it’s official.
Federal government websites often end in .gov or .mil. Before sharing sensitive information, make sure you’re on a federal government site.

Https

The site is secure.
The https:// ensures that you are connecting to the official website and that any information you provide is encrypted and transmitted securely.

Access keys NCBI Homepage MyNCBI Homepage Main Content Main Navigation
Review
. 2023 Oct;30(1):e100861.
doi: 10.1136/bmjhci-2023-100861.

Digital health and care: emerging from pandemic times

Niels Peek  1   2 , Mark Sujan  3 , Philip Scott  4
Affiliations
Review

Digital health and care: emerging from pandemic times

Niels Peek et al. BMJ Health Care Inform. 2023 Oct.

Abstract

In 2020, we published an editorial about the massive disruption of health and care services caused by the COVID-19 pandemic and the rapid changes in digital service delivery, artificial intelligence and data sharing that were taking place at the time. Now, 3 years later, we describe how these developments have progressed since, reflect on lessons learnt and consider key challenges and opportunities ahead by reviewing significant developments reported in the literature. As before, the three key areas we consider are digital transformation of services, realising the potential of artificial intelligence and wise data sharing to facilitate learning health systems. We conclude that the field of digital health has rapidly matured during the pandemic, but there are still major sociotechnical, evaluation and trust challenges in the development and deployment of new digital services.

Keywords: Artificial intelligence; BMJ Health Informatics; COVID-19; Informatics; Public health informatics.

PubMed Disclaimer

Conflict of interest statement

Competing interests: None declared.

References

    1. Peek N, Sujan M, Scott P. Digital health and care in pandemic times: impact of COVID-19. BMJ Health Care Inform 2020;27:e100166. 10.1136/bmjhci-2020-100166 - DOI - PMC - PubMed
    1. Hutchings R. The impact of Covid-19 on the use of digital technology in the NHS. London: Nuffield Trust, 2020.
    1. Mroz G, Papoutsi C, Rushforth A, et al. Changing media Depictions of remote consulting in COVID-19: analysis of UK newspapers. Br J Gen Pract 2021;71:e1–9. 10.3399/BJGP.2020.0967 - DOI - PMC - PubMed
    1. Darley S, Coulson T, Peek N, et al. Understanding how the design and implementation of online consultations affect primary care quality: systematic review of evidence with recommendations for designers, providers, and researchers. J Med Internet Res 2022;24:e37436. 10.2196/37436 - DOI - PMC - PubMed
    1. National Health Service . COVID-19 guidance NOTE: COVID Oximetry @ home; 2022.