Digital Technology Application for Improved Responses to Healthcare Challenges: Lessons Learned from COVID-19

Abstract While COVID-19 is still ongoing and responsible for over 5 million deaths, the scope and speed of advances over the last year in terms of scientific discovery, data dissemination and technology have been staggering. It is not a matter of “if” but “when” we will face the next pandemic; how we leverage technology and data management effectively to create flexible ecosystems that facilitate collaboration, equitable care, and innovation will determine the severity and scale. The aim of this review is to address emerging challenges that came to light during the pandemic in healthcare and innovations that enabled us to adapt and continue to care for patients. The pandemic highlighted the need for seismic shifts in care paradigms and technology with considerations related to the digital divide and health literacy for digital health (DH) interventions to reach full potential and improve health outcomes. We discuss advances in telemedicine, remote patient monitoring (RPM), and emerging wearable technologies. Despite the promise of DH, we emphasize the importance of addressing its limitations including interpretation challenges, accuracy of findings, artificial intelligence driven algorithms. We summarize the most recent recommendation of the Virtual Care Task Force to scaling virtual medical services in Canada. Finally, we propose a model for optimal implementation of health digital innovations with 5 tenets including Data Management, Data Security, Digital Biomarkers, Useful Artificial Intelligence and Clinical Integration.