The development of medicine has been paired with the advancement of technology, enabling better services thanks to public policies that drive institutions to follow their path to comprehensive health interventions.
Digital Health is the concept that link information and communication technologies (ICTs) with health care products, services and processes, as well as organizations or institutions that can improve the health and well-being of citizens. It can include different portable devices, sensors, mobile health applications, artificial intelligence, robotic caregivers, and even electronic records.
Health systems have undergone several transformations and reforms, including legal, administrative and financial. These changes, while relevant and necessary, have had a positive effect on ensuring that citizens have effective access to a minimum package of health interventions and reduce the existing inequality. (1)
Therefore, in a health reform focused on the people, is indispensable that it prioritizes the following points:
- Proactive prevention with risk detection.
- Effective and quality care.
- Custom tracking.
Thus, the fourth industrial revolution has effects on the modernization of Health systems, opening space for Digital Health, considering following categories:
- Science Advancements: supported by the set of theoretical and practical knowledge that allows the migration from the physical to the digital.
- Use of Digital Platforms: to argue a network that protects stored information and continue to monitor, monitor and propose progress.
- Internet of Things: where data exchange paradigms will lead to a high-speed connection between systems and people.
- Connected Communities: which reduce the digital divide that separates different segments of the world's population and integrates them into an area where everyone can enjoy tools to benefit their health.
- Big Data: used in Artificial Intelligence (AI) techniques that allow the autonomy of machines to be advanced by making them capable of solving situations based on algorithms and deep learning. Deep Learning).
The importance of Digital Health converges on the idea of preventing diseases, helping patients to monitor and manage chronic diseases, reducing the cost of providing medical care and making medicines more suited to individual needs.
A clear example of it is that by collecting more data on health markers - from activity level to a patient's blood pressure - Digital Health is expected to improve lifestyle quality and maintain good health for longer, and thus generate fewer doctor visits using tools that allow doctors to do their job remotely , learn more about a specific disease and monitoring it constantly.
- Homedes-Beguer N, Ugalde A. 25 years of decentralization of the Mexican health system: an experience to analyze. Health Management and Policies 2008 7(15): 26-43
- Klaus Schwab. The fourth industrial revolution. Mexico 2017: Penguin Random House Publishing Group
- Paul Sonner. The Fourth Wave: Digital Health.
