EVALUATING THE IMPACT OF DIGITAL HEALTH TECHNOLOGIES ON PUBLIC HEALTH OUTCOMES: A GLOBAL PERSPECTIVE

Abstract

Regarding high-income middle and low regions, acute privatization trends reflect that DHTs positively impact major public health indicators. However, the degree of this impact depends upon a certain regional income level. In the high-income areas, DHTs have been associated with a decreased mortality rate (-8.5%), the number of readmissions to the hospital (-12.4 %), increased vaccination coverage (+ 15.0 percent), and health literacy (+ 22.0 %). It works on middle and low-income people, though such effects are not profound and positive. This implies that the usage of DHTs in healthcare delivery also varies with the income level. For instance, high-income country providers surveyed reported that they use telemedicine services in 72% of cases or more, while these figures were 45% for middle-income providers and 23% for low-income providers. Still, patient and provider perceptions of DHTs are similar in several ways. The self-perceived organizational readiness score, propcreateFrom sources, adoption ease, DHT cost, and DHT accessibility are higher among hospitals in high-income regions than those in middle-income and low-income regions. Finally, while DHTs have global health advantages, developing region patients/providers use them least despite the DHTs as more valuable less expensive, and accessible than the developed region patients/providers.