Challenges and opportunities of digital health in a post-COVID19 world

Abstract

Digital health as a rapidly growing medical field relies comprehensively on human health data. Conventionally, the collection of health data is mediated by officially diagnostic instruments, operated by health professionals in clinical environments and under strict regulatory conditions. Mobile health, telemedicine, and other smart devices with Internet connections are becoming the future choices for collecting patient information. Progress of technologies has facilitated smartphones, wearable devices, and miniaturized health-care devices. These devices allow the gathering of an individual's health-care information at the patient's home. The data from these devices will be huge, and by integrating such enormous data using Artificial Intelligence, more detailed phenotyping of disease and more personalized medicine will be realistic. The future of medicine will be progressively more digital, and recognizing the importance of digital technology in this field and pandemic preparedness planning has become urgent.