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Beyond effectiveness evaluation: Contributing to the discussion on complexity of digital health interventions with examples from cancer care

Digital health interventions (DHIs) have become essential complementary solutions in health care to enhance support and communication at a distance, with evidence of improving patient outcomes. Improving clinical outcomes is a major determinant of success in any health intervention, influencing its...

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Detalles Bibliográficos
Autores principales: Ventura, Filipa, Brovall, Maria, Smith, Frida
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: Frontiers Media S.A. 2022
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9374100/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/35968430
http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/fpubh.2022.883315
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author Ventura, Filipa
Brovall, Maria
Smith, Frida
author_facet Ventura, Filipa
Brovall, Maria
Smith, Frida
author_sort Ventura, Filipa
collection PubMed
description Digital health interventions (DHIs) have become essential complementary solutions in health care to enhance support and communication at a distance, with evidence of improving patient outcomes. Improving clinical outcomes is a major determinant of success in any health intervention, influencing its funding, development, adoption and implementation in real-world practice. In this article we explore our experiences of developing and testing DHIs to identify and discuss complexity challenges along their intervention research lifecycle. Informed by the case study research approach, we selected three individual DHIs aimed at satisfying the supportive and educational needs of people living with cancer. The Care Expert, the Digi-Do and the Gatapp were underpinned on different complexity frameworks i.e., the Medical Research Council framework and the Non-adoption, Abandonment, Scale-up, Spread and Sustainability framework. This variance on the methodological underpinning was expected to prompt a multifaceted discussion on the complexity dimensions endorsed by each of the frameworks. Our discussion endorses the adoption of mixed-methods research designs, to gather the perspectives of stakeholders and end-users, as well as pragmatic evaluation approaches that value effectiveness outcomes as much as process outcomes. Furthermore, the dissemination and sustainability agenda of DHIs needs to be considered from early-stage development with the inclusion of a business model. This business plan should be worked in partnership with healthcare services, regulatory bodies and industry, aiming to assure the management of the DHI throughout time.
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spelling pubmed-93741002022-08-13 Beyond effectiveness evaluation: Contributing to the discussion on complexity of digital health interventions with examples from cancer care Ventura, Filipa Brovall, Maria Smith, Frida Front Public Health Public Health Digital health interventions (DHIs) have become essential complementary solutions in health care to enhance support and communication at a distance, with evidence of improving patient outcomes. Improving clinical outcomes is a major determinant of success in any health intervention, influencing its funding, development, adoption and implementation in real-world practice. In this article we explore our experiences of developing and testing DHIs to identify and discuss complexity challenges along their intervention research lifecycle. Informed by the case study research approach, we selected three individual DHIs aimed at satisfying the supportive and educational needs of people living with cancer. The Care Expert, the Digi-Do and the Gatapp were underpinned on different complexity frameworks i.e., the Medical Research Council framework and the Non-adoption, Abandonment, Scale-up, Spread and Sustainability framework. This variance on the methodological underpinning was expected to prompt a multifaceted discussion on the complexity dimensions endorsed by each of the frameworks. Our discussion endorses the adoption of mixed-methods research designs, to gather the perspectives of stakeholders and end-users, as well as pragmatic evaluation approaches that value effectiveness outcomes as much as process outcomes. Furthermore, the dissemination and sustainability agenda of DHIs needs to be considered from early-stage development with the inclusion of a business model. This business plan should be worked in partnership with healthcare services, regulatory bodies and industry, aiming to assure the management of the DHI throughout time. Frontiers Media S.A. 2022-07-22 /pmc/articles/PMC9374100/ /pubmed/35968430 http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/fpubh.2022.883315 Text en Copyright © 2022 Ventura, Brovall and Smith. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) and the copyright owner(s) are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
spellingShingle Public Health
Ventura, Filipa
Brovall, Maria
Smith, Frida
Beyond effectiveness evaluation: Contributing to the discussion on complexity of digital health interventions with examples from cancer care
title Beyond effectiveness evaluation: Contributing to the discussion on complexity of digital health interventions with examples from cancer care
title_full Beyond effectiveness evaluation: Contributing to the discussion on complexity of digital health interventions with examples from cancer care
title_fullStr Beyond effectiveness evaluation: Contributing to the discussion on complexity of digital health interventions with examples from cancer care
title_full_unstemmed Beyond effectiveness evaluation: Contributing to the discussion on complexity of digital health interventions with examples from cancer care
title_short Beyond effectiveness evaluation: Contributing to the discussion on complexity of digital health interventions with examples from cancer care
title_sort beyond effectiveness evaluation: contributing to the discussion on complexity of digital health interventions with examples from cancer care
topic Public Health
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9374100/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/35968430
http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/fpubh.2022.883315
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