4.6 Evidence-based care

Digital health can generate and manage evidence to support the delivery of evidence-based care. Digital health technologies can foster collaboration and communication between clinicians and support staff involved in helping individuals to recover or maintain good health. There are several reasons why collaboration and the delivery of evidence-based care is challenging. One of these is the knowledge-action gap in health. The knowledge-action gap refers to the conundrum that we often know what works to improve health, but we struggle to put those ideas into action. This can be because research findings aren’t shared well, evidence is hard to locate, the evidence generated is voluminous, healthcare systems have barriers to change or resources are limited. Digital health tools can help bridge the knowledge-action gap by providing healthcare providers with up-to-date information and evidence-based guidelines. Examples include clinical decision support systems that can provide evidence-based recommendations, guidelines and alerts at the point of care. Mobile applications are now also widely available for reference and education.