Exploring digital health technology in rheumatology: a scoping review on benefits, challenges, and future...

The objective of this study is to identify the benefits associated with the integration of digital health technology within rheumatology care, the challenges associated with its implementation, and its future potential to transform rheumatology practice in an evolving global society.

A scoping review was conducted utilising the PRISMA (Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic reviews and Meta-Analyses) extension for Scoping Review guidelines. The Cochrane, Medline, Embase, and Wiley Online Library databases were searched to identify studies on digital health technology in rheumatology practice within the last 10 years (2015-2025). Study outcomes were summarised using a narrative, descriptive analysis.

Forty-six articles were included in the final review. The main forms of digital health technology included telehealth/telemedicine, electronic health records, and electronic patient-reported outcome measures, digital health intervention applications, self-assessment and monitoring applications, digital diagnostic decision support systems, and cloud platforms. Benefits included improved management of chronic diseases with increased flexibility, time saving, and high levels of patient satisfaction. Challenges identified included difficulty with usage due to lack of digital literacy and technology malfunction, disparities with patient access to technology, physician burnout with additional monitoring requirements, increased training, hardware and software requirements, and privacy and security concerns. Projected opportunities included the generation of a big data scenario with increased linkages, allowing opportunities for evidence-based research and data collection in real time, the identification of patient subgroups that may benefit from more frequent care and improved patient empowerment and communication.

Digital health technology has potential value with benefits to self-management, clinical care and research opportunities. This can lead to health advancements at an individual and population level for both rheumatology practice and general healthcare once issues identified arising from its implementation have been adequately addressed.