Citations

Abstract Purpose : Inclusive design seeks to ensure that digital health interventions (DHIs) are accessible, acceptable, and useful for older adults by addressing functional, health-related, and socio-cultural needs. This study aimed to identify factors influencing the inclusivity of DHIs for older adults and to compare perspectives derived from the literature, expert interviews, and a focus group with older adults. By triangulating these perspectives, we sought to establish a common set of factors to inform inclusive design guidelines for DHIs targeting older adults. Methods : Inclusive design criteria were identified and triangulated using three complementary sources: a scoping literature review, semi-structured expert interviews, and a focus group with older adults. Convergences and divergences across these sources were analyzed to determine shared and context-specific priorities for inclusive DHI design. Results : Older adults emphasized the importance of emotional reassurance, analog alternatives, and personal contact with healthcare professionals to reduce anxiety and strengthen feelings of safety and trust. Experts highlighted healthcare system integration, co-design processes, regulatory compliance, sustainable financing models, and ethical considerations such as privacy protection and the avoidance of stigmatization. The literature most frequently emphasized equity-related factors, including affordability and insurance coverage, interoperability across devices and platforms, and tailoring content to individual needs. Across all three sources, there was strong convergence regarding the importance of usability, accessibility, personalization, and user support. Conclusions : The findings demonstrate that inclusive DHI design for older adults requires attention not only to usability and accessibility, but also to emotional, ethical, and systemic dimensions. The convergence across literature, expert, and user perspectives suggests that usability, accessibility, personalization, and ongoing user support constitute foundational requirements for inclusive design guidelines for DHIs aimed at older adults.

The application of digital interventions in healthcare beyond research has been translated in the development of software as a medical device. Along with corresponding regulations for medical devices, there is a need for assessing adverse events to conduct post-market surveillance and to appropriately label digital health interventions to ensure proper use and patient safety. To date unexpected consequences of digital health interventions are neglected or ignored, or at least remain undescribed in literature. This paper is intended to raise awareness across the research community about these upcoming challenges. We recommend that - together with developing a new research field of digitalovigilance - a systematic assessment and monitoring of adverse events and unexpected interactions be included in clinical trials, along with the reporting of such events and the conduct of meta-analyses on critical aspects.

Objective: To identify links between Participatory Health Informatics (PHI) and the One Digital Health framework (ODH) and to show how PHI could be used as a catalyst or contributor to ODH. Methods: We have analyzed the addressed topics within the ODH framework in previous IMIA Yearbook contributions from our working group during the last 10 years. We have matched main themes with the ODH's framework three perspectives (individual health and wellbeing, population and society, and ecosystem). Results: PHI catalysts ODH individual health and wellbeing perspective by providing a more comprehensive view on human health, attitudes, and relations between human health and animal health. Integration of specific behavior change techniques or gamification strategies in digital solutions are effective to change behaviors which address the P5 paradigm. PHI supports the population and society perspective through the engagement of the various stakeholders in healthcare. At the same time, PHI might increase a risk for health inequities due to technologies inaccessible to all equally and challenges associated with this. PHI is a catalyst for the ecosystem perspective by contributing data into the digital health data ecosystem allowing for analysis of interrelations between the various data which in turn might provide links among all components of the healthcare ecosystem. Conclusion: Our results suggest that PHI can and will involve topics relating to ODH. As the ODH concept crystalizes and becomes increasingly influential, its themes will permeate and become embedded in PHI even more. We look forward to these developments and co-evolution of the two frameworks.

Abstract Background Health care has evolved to support the involvement of individuals in decision making by, for example, using mobile apps and wearables that may help empower people to actively participate in their treatment and health monitoring. While the term “participatory health informatics” (PHI) has emerged in literature to describe these activities, along with the use of social media for health purposes, the scope of the research field of PHI is not yet well defined. Objective This article proposes a preliminary definition of PHI and defines the scope of the field. Methods We used an adapted Delphi study design to gain consensus from participants on a definition developed from a previous review of literature. From the literature we derived a set of attributes describing PHI as comprising 18 characteristics, 14 aims, and 4 relations. We invited researchers, health professionals, and health informaticians to score these characteristics and aims of PHI and their relations to other fields over three survey rounds. In the first round participants were able to offer additional attributes for voting. Results The first round had 44 participants, with 28 participants participating in all three rounds. These 28 participants were gender-balanced and comprised participants from industry, academia, and health sectors from all continents. Consensus was reached on 16 characteristics, 9 aims, and 6 related fields. Discussion The consensus reached on attributes of PHI describe PHI as a multidisciplinary field that uses information technology and delivers tools with a focus on individual-centered care. It studies various effects of the use of such tools and technology. Its aims address the individuals in the role of patients, but also the health of a society as a whole. There are relationships to the fields of health informatics, digital health, medical informatics, and consumer health informatics. Conclusion We have proposed a preliminary definition, aims, and relationships of PHI based on literature and expert consensus. These can begin to be used to support development of research priorities and outcomes measurements.

Objective: Social media is used in the context of healthcare, for example in interventions for promoting health. Since social media are easily accessible they have potential to promote health equity. This paper studies relevant factors impacting on health equity considered in social media interventions. Methods: We searched for literature to identify potential relevant factors impacting on health equity considered in social media interventions. We included studies that reported examples of health interventions using social media, focused on health equity, and analyzed health equity factors of social media. We identified Information about health equity factors and targeted groups. Results: We found 17 relevant articles. Factors impacting on health equity reported in the included papers were extracted and grouped into three categories: digital health literacy, digital ethics, and acceptability. Conclusions: Literature shows that it is likely that digital technologies will increase health inequities associated with increased age, lower level of educational attainment, and lower socio-economic status. To address this challenge development of social media interventions should consider participatory design principles, visualization, and theories of social sciences.

Abstract Background As a major public health crisis, the novel coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic demonstrates the urgent need for safe, effective, and evidence-based implementations of digital health. The urgency stems from the frequent tendency to focus attention on seemingly high promising digital health interventions despite being poorly validated in times of crisis. Aim In this paper, we describe a joint call for action to use and leverage evidence-based health informatics as the foundation for the COVID-19 response and public health interventions. Tangible examples are provided for how the working groups and special interest groups of the International Medical Informatics Association (IMIA) are helping to build an evidence-based response to this crisis. Methods Leaders of working and special interest groups of the IMIA, a total of 26 groups, were contacted via e-mail to provide a summary of the scientific-based efforts taken to combat COVID-19 pandemic and participate in the discussion toward the creation of this manuscript. A total of 13 groups participated in this manuscript. Results Various efforts were exerted by members of IMIA including (1) developing evidence-based guidelines for the design and deployment of digital health solutions during COVID-19; (2) surveying clinical informaticians internationally about key digital solutions deployed to combat COVID-19 and the challenges faced when implementing and using them; and (3) offering necessary resources for clinicians about the use of digital tools in clinical practice, education, and research during COVID-19. Discussion Rigor and evidence need to be taken into consideration when designing, implementing, and using digital tools to combat COVID-19 to avoid delays and unforeseen negative consequences. It is paramount to employ a multidisciplinary approach for the development and implementation of digital health tools that have been rapidly deployed in response to the pandemic bearing in mind human factors, ethics, data privacy, and the diversity of context at the local, national, and international levels. The training and capacity building of front-line workers is crucial and must be linked to a clear strategy for evaluation of ongoing experiences.

Summary Objectives: To identify the different ethical issues that should be considered in participatory health through social media from different stakeholder perspectives (i.e., patients/service users, health professionals, health information technology (If) professionals, and policy makers) in any healthcare context. Methods: We implemented a two-round survey composed of open ended questions in the first round, aggregated into a list of ethical issues rated for importance by participants in the second round, to generate a ranked list of possible ethical issues in participatory health based on healthcare professionals’ and policy makers’ opinions on both their own point of view and their beliefs for other stakeholders’ perspectives. Results: Twenty-six individuals responded in the first round of the survey. Multiple ethical issues were identified for each perspective. Data privacy, data security, and digital literacy were common themes in all perspectives. Thirty-three individuals completed the second round of the survey. Data privacy and data security were ranked among the three most important ethical issues in all perspectives. Quality assurance was the most important issue from the healthcare professionals’ perspective and the second most important issue from the patients’ perspective. Data privacy was the most important consideration for patients/service users. Digital literacy was ranked as the fourth most important issue, except for policy makers’ perspective. Conclusions: Different stakeholders’ opinions fairly agreed that there are common ethical issues that should be considered across the four groups (patients, healthcare professionals, health IT professionals, policy makers) such as data privacy, security, and quality assurance.