Digital Health Past, Present, and Future

Although electronic health records and telecommunications were introduced into the healthcare domain more than half a century ago, digital health has only recently been established as its own field. Disruptors such as artificial intelligence and the COVID-19 pandemic have rapidly accelerated the growth of this field in recent years. Innovations including remote patient monitoring, artificial intelligence assisted diagnosis, and personalized treatments informed by genomic sequencing are transforming the way we deliver healthcare and new digital health journals, societies, and conferences have emerged to track and guide these advances.

Now is the perfect time to take pause and review what has been achieved so far in digital health and to prepare for the future. Through this topic we will review the history and current status of digital health, assess the pros and cons of digital health interventions, highlight challenges to the study and implementation of digital health, and provide guidance for best practice.

This topic welcomes all article types accepted by Frontiers in Digital Health. Reviews, methods, technology and code, and protocols are particularly encouraged.

Keywords: digital health, challenges, opportunities, historical, future, implementation, best practice

Important note: All contributions to this Research Topic must be within the scope of the section and journal to which they are submitted, as defined in their mission statements. Frontiers reserves the right to guide an out-of-scope manuscript to a more suitable section or journal at any stage of peer review.