Collaborative Takes on Challenge of Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion in Digital Health Measurement

July 27, 2021
Digital Health Measurement Collaborative Community will seek to standardize the evaluation of inclusivity in the development of digital health measures

The recently formed Digital Health Measurement Collaborative Community (DATAcc) announced its first two projects, which will bring together stakeholders from across the healthcare industry to pre-competitively collaborate on the challenge of diversity, equity, and inclusion in digital health measurement.

DATAcc is hosted by the Digital Medicine Society (DiMe) a nonprofit organization that supports the development of digital medicine through interdisciplinary collaboration, research, teaching, and the promotion of best practices.  The collaborative, which launched in May 2021, comprises leaders from across the government, nonprofit, and private sectors, including healthcare systems, medical technology companies, patient advocates, biopharma, and policy organizations. This group of experts has agreed to focus their first few months on digital inclusion, identifying two distinct project goals:

• To ensure that a broad spectrum of diverse voices (e.g. different races and ethnicities, people with disabilities, all ages, genders, geographies, socioeconomic status, education levels, health status, and sexual orientations) are included in each stage of the product development lifecycle so that diverse populations can utilize and benefit from digital health measurement.

• To standardize the evaluation of inclusivity in the development, deployment and commercialization of digital health measures across contexts of use.

“Equity in health, healthcare, and health outcomes has been a pressing and persistent challenge for decades. Right now, the field has the unique opportunity to build the digital health measurement toolbox with intention, and build it right,” said Jennifer Goldsack, CEO of DiMe, in a statement. “In order to do this, we must create a set of standardized criteria for the inclusion of diverse populations throughout the development, deployment, and commercialization phases of a digital health measurement product. This standardized approach will also allow stakeholders to evaluate whether representative data can be collected and help them to identify where there may be disparities in data collection and health outcomes downstream.”

Digital health measurement also creates the opportunity for more equitable and accessible clinical research and trials. “With digital health measures, we as a company and as a society can access [permission-based] research data on individuals that are not typically seen in traditional healthcare settings,” comments Nirosha M. Lederer, Ph.D., director of real-world evidence strategy at Aetion. “This data can provide valuable insights into the health status of individuals across our society.”

DiMe has brought together the many stakeholders necessary to establish and implement a shared vision of high-quality digital health measurement that is available to and effective for every person. The collaborative will use interdisciplinary expertise, data and use cases to approach their first two projects, ultimately producing outcomes that are actionable and can be used by the community to advance the field. 

Participating members of DATAcc include: 

• ActiGraph

Advanced Medical Technology Association (AdvaMed)

Aetion

AliveCor

American Telemedicine Association

Becton, Dickinson and Company (BD)

Connected Health Initiative

Consumer Technology Association

Duke University - Big Ideas Lab

eHealth Initiative

HumanFirst

Evidation Health

FDA, Center for Devices and Radiological Health (CDRH)

Flatiron Health

Healthcare Information and Management Systems Society (HIMSS)

HHS, Health Sector Cybersecurity Coordination Center (HC3)

IEEE Standards Association (IEEE SA)

Institute for eHealth Equity

Johnson & Johnson

• Johns Hopkins Medicine, Armstrong Institute for Patient Safety and Quality

MindMed
National Cancer Institute

National Digital Inclusion Alliance

National Patient Advocate Foundation

Open mHealth

OptumLabs

Pfizer

Philips
Savvy Cooperative

Teladoc Health

U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs

UC San Diego, ReCODE Health

University of Louisville, Office of Research and Innovation

University of Rochester Medical Center, Center for Health + Technology

Verily Life Sciences

 Xealth

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