Healthier Lives, Digitally Enabled

Book excerpt: Disruption often drives innovation, and 2020 was certainly an extraordinary year for all health professionals. Not only did it stretch individual providers and healthcare systems to their limits, it highlighted the urgent and rapid need to mobilize digital health technology, as well as pressure-testing digital health in ways and under timeframes not previously imagined. Many saw the rapid deployment and uptake of telehealth services, partly out of necessity to maintain continuity of care, but also to ensure that those who needed healthcare were still able to access it no matter what their situation or location. This book presents 17 selected papers from the Australian Health Informatics Conference (HIC 2020) – Healthier Lives, Digitally Enabled, held online from 5 – 25 November 2020. This annual conference usually marks the coming together of the nation’s digital health community to discuss, share and showcase current and future initiatives that support the progression of digital health, but in 2020, it took the form of satellite events, culminating with an online Digital Health Institute Summit. The papers presented here reflect highly topical themes across various areas and disciplines, including: digital health in the care of the elderly, mental health, COVID-19, public health, and workforce. Familiar topics, such as wearables, mobile health and remote monitoring, interoperability, and data privacy are also covered, as well as telehealth, automation, bots, and other AI applications. The book will be of interest to all health professionals, especially those working in the fields of digital health informatics and telemedicine.