This study explores how digital health technologies (DHTs) approved by the FDA and listed by ORCHA impact patients with multiple chronic conditions.
By modeling a hypothetical 79-year-old woman with five chronic conditions (type 2 diabetes, hypertension, COPD, osteoporosis, and osteoarthritis), the authors assessed how many DHTs she would need to adequately manage her health.
A total of 148 DHTs were identified (68 [46%] from FDA databases), only 5 DHTs (3.4%) were intended for 2 or more conditions.
The hypothetical patient would need to be prescribed up to 13 apps and 7 devices (a blood pressure monitor, a smartwatch, a pulse oximeter, a blood glucose monitor etc.) to receive benefits from 28 functions at least 3 of 5 health professionals considered important.
The findings of this systematic review suggest that the current state of DHTs might generate an important burden for patients with chronic conditions, who often have multiple health problems and conditions.
While disease-specific DHTs offer specialized support but may burden patients with multimorbidity, broader DHTs with hundreds of functions are unrealistic and inefficient, as each patient may need only a few functions.
The authors provide some potential solutions that include advancing the interoperability of DHTs to create an integrated ecosystem where multiple apps and devices are processed and integrated to harmonize patient interfaces, tasks, alerts, and feedbacks, promoting communication and education on DHTs for clinicians and patients to enhance their digital health literacy and awareness of DHTs, and following the principles of minimally disruptive digital medicine.
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