REVIEW article
Front. Public Health
Sec. Digital Public Health
Volume 13 - 2025 | doi: 10.3389/fpubh.2025.1646802
This article is part of the Research TopicDigital Health Innovations for Patient-Centered CareView all 33 articles
Digital Health: Current Applications, Challenges, and Future Directions for Enhancing Healthcare Quality and Safety
Provisionally accepted
Saidi Hu1
Danyang Song1Siran Wan1
Shunhong Zhang2Chenchen Luo3Nian Li4Guangyue Liu5Jailson da Graça Espírito Santo Vasconcelos6Leonilde Lavres Ceita de Carvalho6Eveline Neobísi7Monazeri Lima Bragança da Costa7José Etchu Takounjou6
Karem Neves6Luzimery dos Ramos da Conceição6Marinela da Costa Encarnação6
Linyong Zhao8,9*- 1Ya'an People’s Hospital, Yaan, China
- 2Pangang Group General Hospital, Panzhihua, China
- 3Department of outpatient chengbei，the Affiliated Stomatological Hospital, Southwest Medical University, Luzhou, China
- 4Panzhihua Central Hospital, Panzhihua, China
- 5West China Hospital of Sichuan University, Chengdu, China
- 6Hospital Dr Ayres de Menezes, Sao Tome, Sao Tome and Principe
- 7Delegação de saúde São Tomé e Príncipe, Sao Tome, Sao Tome and Principe
- 8Department of General Surgery & Laboratory of Gastric Cancer, West China Hospital, Sichuan University, Chengdu, China
- 9Gastric Cancer Center, West China Hospital, Sichuan University, Chengdu, China
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Abstracts Digital Health Technologies (DHTs) have become a cornerstone of modern healthcare, significantly improving quality and safety across clinical practice, public health, and medical research. Originating in the mid-to-late 20th century, DHTs have facilitated substantial progress in personalized medicine, predictive analytics, and remote patient monitoring through the implementation of artificial intelligence (AI), wearable devices, and telemedicine platforms. During the Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic, these technologies proved indispensable for epidemic surveillance and precision containment, while also mitigating healthcare access disruptions. Nevertheless, critical challenges including the digital ethics and equity, technical and regulatory policy restrictions, privacy and data security concerns, and clinical workflow integration issues remain to be addressed. This narrative review explores the transformative role of DHTs throughout the disease management continuum—from prevention to prognosis—and evaluates their contributions to healthcare quality and safety. It also provides strategies for stakeholders to address existing barriers. By overcoming these challenges, DHTs can further elevate healthcare standards, fostering a safer and more efficient global healthcare system. Keywords: Digital Health Technologies; healthcare quality and safety; COVID-19; healthcare access disruption; digital divide; wearable devices; artificial intelligence
Keywords: Digital health technologies, healthcare quality and safety, COVID-19, healthcareaccess disruption, digital divide, wearable devices, artificial intelligence
Received: 13 Jun 2025; Accepted: 16 Sep 2025.
Copyright: © 2025 Hu, Song, Wan, Zhang, Luo, Li, Liu, Graça Espírito Santo Vasconcelos, Carvalho, Neobísi, Costa, Etchu Takounjou, Neves, Ramos da Conceição, Costa Encarnação and Zhao. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
* Correspondence: Linyong Zhao, 153795352@scu.edu.cn
Disclaimer: All claims expressed in this article are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily represent those of their affiliated organizations, or those of the publisher, the editors and the reviewers. Any product that may be evaluated in this article or claim that may be made by its manufacturer is not guaranteed or endorsed by the publisher.