Digital health in the era of personalized healthcare

Abstract Personalization of healthcare has the potential to enable the most effective care to become available to individuals faster and at a lower overall cost than before, aimed at achieving the best possible clinical outcomes in the long term. Digital health solutions including novel biomarkers collected through technologies, such as “wearables” and “apps,” and new tools that may be more sensitive to change could complement existing approaches or provide novel opportunities within this sphere. This chapter explores how digital health tools could play a key role in personalizing healthcare, for example, by providing new channels for continuous or frequent patient monitoring outside of the clinical setting, supporting decision-making, and facilitating access to care, in relation to several stages of the care delivery pathway. Some of these tools can even be used remotely to deliver care or as interventions themselves. As well as opportunities, the adoption of digital health solutions presents several challenges for developers, regulators, and end users alike; these include balancing regulation to maintain patient safety with short software life cycles and integrating new ways of working into a complex multistakeholder environment. Industry is facing difficulties with respect to data fragmentation, and regulating ever-evolving “software as a medical device” in particular is requiring novel approaches, which are currently being piloted. Integration of digital health solutions is often complicated, but it should done be in a way that drives long-term engagement of patients with this technology. Ultimately, addressing these hurdles, applying learnings from previous programs, and shifting from a traditional, fragmented approach to one that is open and collaborative and incorporates digital health solutions could result in improved clinical outcomes for each individual patient.