Digital health and equitable access to care

Research on digital health equity has developed in important ways especially since the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, with a series of clear recommendations now established for policy and practice. However, research and policy addressing the health system dimensions of digital health equity is needed to examine the appropriate roles of digital technologies in enabling access to care. We use a highly cited framework by Levesque et al on patient-centered access to care and the World Health Organization’s framework on digitally enabled health systems to generate insights into the ways that digital solutions can support access to needed health care for structurally marginalized communities. Specifically, we mapped the frameworks to identify where applications of digital health do and do not support access to care, documenting which dimensions of access are under-addressed by digital health. Our analysis suggests that digital health has disproportionately focused on downstream enablers of access to care, which are low-yield when equity is the goal. We identify important opportunities for policy makers, funders and other stakeholders to attend more to digital solutions that support upstream enablement of peoples’ abilities to understand, perceive, and seek out care. These areas are an important focal point for digital interventions and have the potential to be more equity-enhancing than downstream interventions at the time that care is accessed. Overall, we highlight the importance of taking a health system perspective when considering the roles of digital technologies in enhancing or inhibiting equitable access to needed health care.