In December 2024, the IQVIA Institute for Human Data Science released Digital Health Trends 2024: Implications for Research and Patient Care, our fifth report covering the digital health space. We started in 2013 with a focus on emerging patient mobile health apps. Since then, the landscape has expanded and evolved to include wearable sensors and a variety of other sophisticated solutions that are making an impact on patient care and research.

This year’s report continues to follow the evolution of mobile devices (including multi-use smartphones, tablets, virtual reality devices, and consumer wearables), along with their associated applications, and how they are evolving into more sophisticated solutions leveraging biometric sensors, connected devices, analytic algorithms, and software platforms. For the first time, we also explore provider-focused solutions such as digital diagnostics, clinical decision support tools, remote patient monitoring tools, and AI-informed digital platforms.

Amid staffing shortages and surging provider workloads, digital health solutions have the potential to improve care quality and efficiency by addressing gaps and avoiding missed opportunities. At every stage of a patient’s journey — from diagnosis and treatment to ongoing monitoring and management — digital health solutions can support providers, including notifying them of opportunities to intervene. Yet digital health tools are not panaceas. In fact, if not well designed and integrated into clinical practice, solutions could compound the burden providers are already carrying.

How are providers currently using digital health solutions? What characteristics increase the likelihood of success for provider-related solutions? Answers to these questions will continue to take shape. In the meantime, here are five takeaways from our latest report.

1. We identified 222 digital therapies that providers use in clinical care and 140 digital therapeutics (DTx) available to prescribe globally.¹

   More than 360 software-based therapeutic tools are now commercially available — some used by providers to enhance clinical and digital care and others prescribed to patients to treat disease. Digital health apps that improve patient self-care and disease management are also directly available to patients without a prescription and can reduce symptoms.

   Adoption varies by region. Germany leads the world in use of prescription digital therapeutics, with 56 currently eligible for reimbursement. The Digitale Gesundheitsanwendungen (DiGA) directory lists these products and doubles as a centralized repository of clinical evidence, helping to inform providers and increase prescribing. By contrast, commercial challenges, including poor reimbursement that has forced patients to pay out of pocket, have slowed uptake in the United States. Many early developers of pharmacy-dispensed DTx are no longer in business today — though some of their products have been acquired by provider organizations for use in innovative digital care programs or direct prescribing.

   A new cohort of DTx is now entering a more mature market and may find greater success as stakeholders work through policy and reimbursement challenges. At present, 37 DTx are available in the U.S. to treat diseases (46 if you include outpatient dosing apps). In the UK, the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE) has endorsed 20 for use by the NHS (National Health Service) along with other digital care solutions.

2. For “digital-first” providers, software is central to care delivery.

   Any provider may adopt digital tools into their practice to create a form of blended care, but for “digital-first” providers, these innovations are core to their practice. They own software-based tools and center them within commercially marketed physician- and/or coach-supported disease management programs that span prevention, diagnosis, treatment, disease self-management, and monitoring.

   One example is Kaia Health, which uses a computer-vision mobile app to follow patients as they perform physical therapy exercises and delivers real-time corrective feedback to treat back pain and other musculoskeletal issues. This digital-first approach is also well-suited for treating chronic conditions where patients may need more continuous behavioral support such as obesity, mental health or physical and neurological rehabilitation, and where digitally supported disease management programs have emerged to serve patients, payers, and employers.

   Although digital-first providers typically deliver care virtually via telehealth, this model differs from “pure” telehealth because the software itself plays a fundamental role in improving health outcomes.

3. Adoption among other providers remains challenging; companies are seeking innovative ways to increase uptake.

   As digital health segments have become more defined, companies are combining them into more holistic clinical platform solutions, which help build a stronger case for health system adoption. Indeed, developers that once offered patients symptom-tracking wearables or self-care apps are now tying these together with provider-facing portals. The goal: delivering value to providers and health systems by integrating these solutions into workflow and ensuring data feeds into patient health records.

   One example of this evolution is Glooko, which launched the Glooko Logbook app in 2011 to help patients with diabetes track their blood sugar levels from fingerstick glucose meters. Having added capabilities over time, Glooko’s platform now offers a population health analytics portal that helps target at-risk patients, recommends insulin dose adjustments, and tracks statistics following intervention. It also integrates patient diabetes data into EHRs so providers don’t need to switch between platforms,²  and facilitates provider billing for remote patient monitoring (RPM) activities using Current Procedural Terminology (CPT) codes,³  and helps determine which patients are eligible for RPM reimbursement in a given calendar month.

   By pulling in data from sensor-based devices, such portals enable clinicians and investigators to monitor and manage their patient and clinical trial populations remotely. Many of these platforms feature sophisticated algorithms and AI capabilities to provide clinical decision support, dose management, and therapeutic guidance. In some cases, they issue notifications when patient values or patient-reported outcomes fall outside specified ranges — making it easier to identify patients who need their care adjusted.

   For instance, AI-enabled predictive analytics on Biofourmis’ Platform analyze physiologic data collected through wearable devices to monitor patients with chronic conditions such as heart failure, hypertension, coronary artery disease, arrhythmias and COPD, and predict complications, deterioration, length of stay, and readmission risk for patients. Separately, new categories of digital health assessment tools are emerging to aid providers: digital risk screening tools are now helping to identify undiagnosed patients, and digital diagnostics assist providers in disease assessment and can help reduce the number of patients referred unnecessarily from primary care to specialists.

4. To drive profitability, developers are building digital care wraparounds for their solutions.

   In some cases, developers of standalone digital therapeutics and health apps have seen limited profit — driving many to rapidly build care wraparounds for their solutions. They create these wraparounds in several ways, including:

   • Partnering with provider groups, as evidenced by Axena’s collaboration with UpScriptHealth telehealth prescribers to evaluate women’s incontinence symptoms and, if appropriate, to prescribe newly launched Leva Pelvic Health System
   • Merging with digital care companies, as Headspace did with Ginger in 2021 to offer mental health coaching⁴
   • Hiring coaches, as Noom did around 2017 to create digital care programs for weight management⁵
   • And embedding video calling within their platforms

   At the same time, many developers have shifted exclusively to employer benefit and health plan-mediated digital care models — perhaps finding them more lucrative. Consequently, many non-prescription DTx once accessible to patients via direct to-consumer access are now “gated” digital care programs. In other words, they require permission or referral from a provider, payer, or employer (although a few still allow patient self-enrollment and cash pay).

5. Providers can use digital health solutions as differentiation.

   By acquiring digital tools, providers can position their care as cutting-edge, and possibly more effectively influence outcomes. As one example, consider Mt. Sinai’s use of MindMotion GO — a virtual reality game for neurological rehabilitation that helps stroke patients recover physical movement. Through this partnership, Mount Sinai created an innovative, digitally enabled program that extends into the home setting: Mount Sinai’s MindMotion GO telerehabilitation program.

   Consider, too, that the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) has begun to incorporate digital therapies into care. Several devices using virtual reality (VR) for rehabilitation have been listed for use and reimbursement through the U.S. Veterans Affairs Federal Supply Schedule (FSS), along with several DTx focused on mental health and stroke-related walking impairments. Use of immersive technology by the VA expanded from 240 medical centers and facilities in 2021 to more than 2,000 member centers in 2023. These therapies range in focus from creative art to physical rehabilitation, the management of phantom limb pain, and mental health therapies to help decrease pain, stress, anxiety, boredom, and restless behaviors.

Preparing for what’s ahead

The IQVIA Institute for Human Data Science will continue to follow progress in digital health. Stay tuned for a follow-up report that will look across segments to examine how business strategies are shifting in the pursuit of revenue, the pathways digital products are taking to reach the market and gain reimbursement, and how payer evidence requirements and government policies are shifting globally and may influence adoption.

Download the report on Digital Health Trends 2024.

¹ Unless noted, all information is sourced from IQVIA Institute for Human Data Science. Digital Health Trends 2024: Implications for Research and Patient Care. December 2024.
² Glooko. EHR Integrations(US customers only). [Accessed Jan 23, 2025]. Available from: https://developers.glooko.com/docs/ehrintegrations
³ Glooko. Glooko Adds New Enhancements to Billing Export Feature to Streamline Submitting CPT Codes for Remote Patient Monitoring Reimbursement. 2022 Mar 30. Available from: https://glooko.com/new-glooko-remote-patient-monitoring-cpt-code-reimbursement-feature/
⁴ Fierce Healthcare. Headspace, Ginger finalize merger to form $3B mental health company Landi H. Oct 14, 2021. https://www.fiercehealthcare.com/tech/headspace-ginger-finalize-3b-merger-to-offer-meditation-mindfulness-and-tele-therapy
⁵ U.S. Chamber of Commerce. How Noom Tapped Psychology and Technology to Build a $400 Million Weight-Loss App. 2021 Feb 17. Available from: https://www.uschamber.com/co/good-company/the-leap/noom-weight-loss-app-technology