Dynamic Clinical Algorithms: Digital Technology Can Transform Health Care Decision-Making

Most health care in low-income countries is delivered at a primary care level by health workers who lack quality training and supervision, often distant from more experienced support. Lack of knowledge and poor communication result in a poor quality of care and inefficient delivery of health services. Although bringing great benefits in sectors such as finance and telecommunication in recent years, the Digital Revolution has lightly and inconsistently affected the health sector. These advances offer an opportunity to dramatically transform health care by increasing the availability and timeliness of information to augment clinical decision-making, based on improved access to patient histories, current information on disease epidemiology, and improved incorporation of data from point-of-care and centralized diagnostic testing. A comprehensive approach is needed to more effectively incorporate current digital technologies into health systems, bringing external and patient-derived data into the clinical decision-making process in real time, irrespective of health worker training or location. Such dynamic clinical algorithms could provide a more effective framework within which to design and integrate new digital health technologies and deliver improved patient care by primary care health workers.