Development of a Digital Services Risk Management Tool - Process Description

Access to digital health services is not equitable, particularly among vulnerable people such as older adults and those with limited digital skills. We designed a Digital Services Risk Management Tool for the assessment of digital services' accessibility from patient's perspective. The tool is based on the bowtie analysis, a visual risk assessment and management method. A panel of experts recognized potential threats from literature, and their own experience. The main categories for hazards were selected in consensus discussions, and Excel-based tool was constructed to provide a visual and systematic approach to assess threats, consequences, and safeguards. The tool shows potential to improve the safety and accessibility of digital health services while supporting more systematic and standardised development, but requires further validation and user-based evaluation.