Digital Solutions to Alleviate the Burden on Health Systems During a Public Health Care Crisis: COVID-19 as an Opportunity

Abstract

The COVID-19 pandemic has generated unprecedented and sustained health management challenges worldwide. Health care systems continue to struggle to support the needs of the majority of infected individuals that are either asymptomatic or have mild symptoms. In addition, long-term effects in the form of long-lasting COVID-19 symptoms or widespread mental health issues aggravated by the pandemic pose a burden on health care systems worldwide. This viewpoint article considers aspects of digital health care solutions and how they can play an ongoing role in safely addressing gaps in the health care support available from initially and repeatedly overwhelmed providers and systems. Digital solutions can be readily designed to address this need and can be flexible enough to adapt to the evolving management requirements of various stakeholders to reduce COVID-19 infection rates, acute hospitalizations, and mortality. Multiplatform solutions provide a hybrid model of care, which can include mobile and online platforms accompanied by direct clinician input and feedback. Desirable components to be included are discussed, including symptom tracking, patient education, well-being support, and bidirectional communication between patients and clinicians. Customizable and scalable digital health platforms not only can be readily adapted to further meet the needs of employers and public health stakeholders during the ongoing pandemic, but also hold relevance for flexibly meeting broader care management needs into the future.