Digital Solutions for the Prevention of Chronic Diseases

Digital health innovation consultant at Bax and Company, David Chadima, explores the challenges of using digital solutions for the prevention of chronic diseases. Over the past decade, healthcare has seen a paradigm shift with the rise of digital health tools to prevent the onset of diseases as well as to detect and treat diseases at an early stage. This article takes a novel look at what these challenges are and why, despite these challenges, digital tools for the prevention of chronic diseases have a high potential for wide use. When designing a business model for a digital tool for the prevention of chronic diseases, providers of care, patients, insurance companies and policymakers should all be considered. Another major challenge is the financial reimbursement of these digital tools for the prevention of chronic diseases, which is crucial to achieving successful implementation and adoption. Therefore, new steps need to be taken towards redesigning the care model in a way that care providers can be motivated to support the use of digital tools for the prevention of chronic diseases. Future predictions suggest that digital tools for the prevention of chronic diseases will have a highly significant impact. However, the barriers discussed above need to be addressed on the systemic level to allow for these emerging digital tools in preventing chronic diseases to be implemented on scale.