Digital health innovations for noncommunicable disease management during the COVID-19 pandemic: a rapid scoping review

Abstract

Objective To identify and summarise the digital health interventions (DHIs) implemented for non-communicable disease (NCD) management for COVID-19. Design Rapid scoping review. Three reviewers jointly screened titles–abstracts and full texts. One reviewer screened all excluded records. Data were mapped to WHO DHI Classification and narratively summarised. Data sources PubMed, CENTRAL, CINAHL, EMBASE. Eligibility criteria for selecting studies Peer-reviewed primary research published between 1 November 2019 and 19 September 2021 on DHI for NCD management during the COVID-19 pandemic. Reviews, editorials, letters, commentaries, opinions, conference abstracts and grey literature were excluded. Results Eighty-three studies drawn from 5275 records were included. A majority of the studies were quantitative in design. Forty per cent of the DHIs were implemented in the Americas. Nearly half of these DHIs targeted mental health conditions. A majority of the interventions were delivered remotely and via telephones. Zoom (26.5%), email (17%) and WhatsApp (7.5%) were the top three platforms for care delivery. Telemedicine, targeted client interventions, personal health tracking and on-demand information services for clients were the most frequently implemented interventions. Details regarding associated costs, sustainability, scalability and data governance of the DHI implementations were not described in the majority of the studies. Conclusion While DHIs supported NCD management during the COVID-19 pandemic, their implementation has not been equitable across geographies or NCDs. While offering promise towards supporting the continuum of care during care delivery disruptions, DHIs need to be embedded into healthcare delivery settings towards strengthening health systems rather than standalone parallel efforts to overcome system level challenges.