basics of Digital Health

1. Digital Health
Dr Rinsa Vaheed, MPH
December 2021

2. Introduction
“Cultural transformation of technologies that
provide digital and objective data accessible to
both caregivers and patients leads to an equal
level doctor-patient relationship with shared
decision-making”

3. Future of Healthcare
• Focus on prevention and well being
• Interoperable data and platform
• Consumer engagement and empowerment

4. Digital technologies in Healthcare
• Electronic Health Records (EHR’s)
• mHealth
• Telehealth
• Social Media
• Gamification
• Big data

5. Electronic Health Records (EHR)
• Real time, patient centered records, provide immediate and secured
information to authorized users.
• Advantage
• improving efficiency; increasing positive patient outcomes;
population health
• Examples
• Health in digital society, Estonia
• 99% state services are online; EHR linked with Health Informatics
System (HIS) of the country; E- prescription; E- consultation

6. mHealth
• Advancement of mobile application to address health priorities
• Increase mobile phone subscribers:
• Two third of the global population subscribe to mobile service by
2021 (GSMA Report 2021)
• Examples
• mSehat, Uttar Pradesh, India
• Uttar Pradesh had high MMR and IMR
• mHealth application to train the workforce
• Multi-media enabled content.

7. Telehealth
• Practice of medicine at a distance
• Advantage:
• Increase access and speed ; Reduce cost, provide service
to remote population
• Examples
• Peek Vision, Kenya
• Portable Eye Examination Kit (Peek ), Smart phone
based system for comprehensive eye testing ; Peek
Acuity, the app , used to test eyesight easily and
affordably using a smart phone.

8. Social Media
• Nearly 80% of countries reported its use primarily to learn
about health issues (by WHO)
• Advantages
• Provide interaction of health care consumers, health
professionals & organizations
• Examples
• Haitian earthquake, 2010
• Break Dengue Belgium/ Global

9. Gamification
• New strategy to influence health behavior
• Advantage
• Behavioral change intervention through gaming platform
• Examples
• Behavioral e-therapy, New Zealand

10. Big data
• Big data can be both structured and unstructured
• 6 V’s in big data:
• Volume
• Velocity
• Variety
• Value
• Variability
• Veracity

11. Big data Analytics

12. Drawbacks of Digital Health
•Privacy issues
•Misuse of data
•Upgradation on regular basis
•Complex and composite process
•Expensive

13. Thank You

14. • Google AI project for health care
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AbdVsi1VjQY&t=50s