Facilitators and Barriers of Digital Health Technologies Implementation in Hospital Settings in a Post-COVID-19 Era – A Scoping Review

Project: Research

Project Details

Description

The protocol is registered at OSF and it can be accessed via this link: https://osf.io/bqjuw

Background: Given their great potential, high efficiency, and cost-effectiveness, digital health technologies (DHTs) have rapidly proliferated and integrated into the multiple domains in hospital settings. However, the growth and applications of DHTs is not uniform worldwide after the COVID-19 pandemic, whereby some hospitals, especially those in the developing countries are still lacking behind due to limited information and resources in DHTs implementation. Another gap in digital health is that the landscape of DHTs is not clearly defined, resulting in problems to its implementation.

Objectives: This review aims to 1) identify facilitators and barriers of the implementation of DHTs in hospital settings in a Post-COVID19 era; 2) identify and describe DHTs that have been implemented in hospital settings after the COVID-19 pandemic; 3) develop a classification framework that can define the global landscape of DHTs.

Methods: This scoping review protocol follows Arksey and O’Malley Framework for Conducting Scoping Reviews. We will search PubMed, Scopus, PsycINFO, EMBASE, Cochrane Central Register of Controlled Trials (CENTRAL), and Cumulative Index to Nursing and Allied Health Literature (CINAHL) Plus. A grey literature search will be conducted using Google Scholar and searching relevant websites, theses, and conference abstracts. Titles and abstracts will be screened by independent reviewers, while full-text reviews will be conducted by two reviewers to determine eligibility based on prespecified inclusion and exclusion criteria. Data extracted will include the descriptions of included studies (e.g., the authors, publication years, study objectives, study countries, diseases conditions, types of DHTs, fields of clinical medicine which the DHTs are applied, study designs, sample sizes, characteristics of the study population, design features of the intervention or program, and the key findings of the included studies) as well as the facilitators and barriers of DHTs implementation.

Results: Descriptions of the included studies will be reported using descriptive statistics. Meanwhile, the facilitators and barriers of DHTs implementation, which can be in the forms of quantitative and qualitative data will be synthesised via a parallel-results convergent synthesis design. Then, thematic analysis will be conducted to organise these facilitators and barriers into themes using an inductive approach. To develop a novel classification framework, we will identify all available DHTs and categorise them according to the types of equipment and the methods of operation.

Conclusion: The findings from the review will inform stakeholders regarding the various facilitators and barriers of DHTs implementation in hospital settings and possible solutions to developing interventions. It will also identify DHTs that have been implemented and subsequently classify them using a novel framework. It will provide direction for future digital health research, digital health investments, healthcare delivery, and inform health care policy.
StatusActive
Effective start/end date3/07/23 → …

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