Digital Health Tools Need a New Benchmark

During the Covid-19 pandemic, digital health technologies transformed the way that many of us received health care, supercharging the uptake of digital tools such as telehealth platforms, mobile symptom trackers, and remote monitoring. However, the whole-scale adoption and impact of digital health technology in national health systems around the world has still not yet fully materialized. A critical reason is that they often lack the necessary scientific evidence to back the range of benefits--from improved health outcomes for patients to better cost-benefit outcomes for payers such as insurance companies and health care providers--that its manufacturers claim they can deliver. A recent study by healthtech seed fund Rock Health and Johns Hopkins University demonstrated the extent of the problem. The researchers reviewed the associated clinical trials, regulatory claims filings, and listed outcomes by 224 healthcare companies.