The DHU working paper: “Tools to support digital health solutions implementation and uptake” aims to identify methods and tools to implement and scale-up digital health. It provides a framework for further exploration and collection of innovative practices through the DHU Radar, aiming to support the adoption needs of different stakeholders and measure overall digital maturity in the digital health ecosystem.

Framework of methods and tools for digital health implementation

Based on the collected methodologies and tools, the following categories were identified which span from ideation to large-scale deployment:

Main Results: Collection of methods and tools

As a result of the first phase of the collection, 18 methods and tools have been identified covering five out of the seven categories defined in the framework. For each method, a description fiche is provided that contains evidence of successful implementation, especially in the digital health field. Most are practical tools and maturity, and readiness levels is the category with more examples, followed by design of solutions and value assessment tools.

Design of solutions

• Design Thinking: Design thinking provides all professionals with a standardized innovation process to develop creative solutions to problems.
• User-centred design: User-Centred design aims to make products and services with a high usability, including how convenient they are in terms of its usage, manageability, effectiveness, and how well they are mapped to the user requirements.
• Blueprint Personas: Twelve personas were developed in the Blueprint on Digital Transformation of Health and Care for the Ageing Society to assist in the design of health services, especially digital health services.

Business modelling

• Business model canvas: The Business Model Canvas is a tool to visualise all the building blocks to start a business, including customers, route to market, value proposition and finance.
• Platform design tool: To build multi-sided, transformative platform strategies to empower ecosystems in creating shared value.
• Rulebook for a fair data economy: The rulebook offers instructions and templates to facilitate data network building

Compliance to standards and norms

• mHealth assessment frameworks: Assess mHealth applications before being approved by health authorities to be included in the list of prescribed and reimbursable apps. Dimensions evaluated include usability, interoperability, privacy and clinical effectiveness.
• Digital health assessment technology: Rapid certification of health apps in a repeatable process.

Maturity and readiness levels

• Technology readiness levels: Estimate the maturity of technologies and enabling consistent and uniform discussions of technical maturity across different types of technology. The European Commission advised EU-funded research and innovation projects to adopt the scale in 2010.
• Services and business readiness levels: Provide a readiness system for decision makers in need to move innovations to scale.
• Scirocco Maturity Assessment Tool: Develop a radar diagram which reveals areas of strengths and also gaps in capability to implement integrated care in a country or region.
• Momentum Telemedicine: Offers guidance for telemedicine doers who seek to move telemedicine from an idea or a pilot to daily practice or to scale.
• IN4AHA Scale-up model: Intended for commercially driven entities whose innovative solution already has proof of feasibility on either local, regional, or national scale, but whose ambition is to expand to new target markets, either internationally or into different regions.
• Telemedicine Community Readiness Level: Helps actors in communities to determine the current requirements for asuccessful telemedicine implementation.
• HIMSS Maturity Model Suites: Measures the maturity of different eHealth solutions applied in healthcare. It includes electronic medical records (EMRAM), outpatient electronic medical record (O-EMRAM), continuity of care (CCMM), digital imaging (DIAM), analytics maturity (AMAM), infrastructure (INFRAM) and a digital health index (DHI).

Value assessment tools

• MAFEIP: estimate the health and economic outcomes of different Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) enabled social and health innovations, including new care pathways, devices, surgical techniques, and organisational models.
• ASSIST: To help project leaders, entrepreneurs and start-ups to objectively and rigorously evaluate their solution from an evidence-based multi-stakeholder perspective.
• MAST – Model for Assessment of Telemedicine: To be used as a basis for decision making in EU and the European countries indecisions on use of telemedicine applications.