After the course, students will be able to…

1. understand the importance of DHIs for the management of chronic conditions
2. understand the anatomy of DHIs
3. know frameworks for the design of DHIs
4. know evaluation criteria for DHIs
5. know technologies for DHIs
6. assess DHIs
7. discuss the advantages and disadvantages of DHIs

To reach these learning objectives, the following topics are covered in the lecture and will be discussed based on concrete national and international examples including DHIs from the Center for Digital Health Interventions (www.c4dhi.org), a joint initiative of the Department of Management, Technology and Economics at ETH Zurich and the Institute of Technology Management at the University of St.Gallen:

1. Motivation for Digital Health

• The rise of chronic diseases in developed countries
• The discrepancy of acute care and care of chronic diseases
• Lifestyle as medicine and prevention
• From excellence of care in healthcare institutions to excellence of care in everyday life

2. Anatomy of Digital Health Interventions

• Just-in-time adaptive interventions
• Digital biomarker for predicting states of vulnerability
• Digital biomarker for predicting states of receptivity
• Digital coaching and healthcare chatbots

3. Design & Evaluation of Digital Health Interventions

• Overview of design frameworks
• Preparation of DHIs
• Optimization of  DHIs
• Evaluation of DHIs
• Implementation of DHIs

4. Digital Health Technologies

• Technologies for telemedicine
• Mobile medical devices
• Virtual, augmented and mixed reality applications incl. live demonstrations
• Privacy and regulatory considerations

The Digital Health lecture is structured in two parts and follows the concept of a hybrid therapy consisting of live input sessions and complementary online lessons. In the first part, students will learn and discuss the topics of the four learning modules in weekly sessions. Complementary learning material (e.g., video and audio clips), multiple-choice questions and exercises are provided online.

In the second part, students work in teams and will use their knowledge from the first part of the lecture to critically assess DHIs. Each team will then present and discuss the findings of the assessment with their fellow students who will provide peer-reviews. Additional online coaching sessions are offered to support the teams with the preparation of their presentations.

1. Cohen AB Dorsey ER Mathews SC et al. (2020) A digital health industry cohort across the health continuum Nature Digital Medicine 3(68), 10.1038/s41746‐020‐0276‐9
2. Collins LM (2018) Optimization of Behavioral, Biobehavioral, and Biomedical Interventions: The Multiphase Optimization Strategy (MOST) New York: Springer, 10.1007/978-3-319-72206-1
3. Coravos A. Khozin S. and K. D. Mandl (2019) Developing and Adopting Safe and Effective Digital Biomarkers to Improve Patient Outcomes Nature Digital Medicine 2 Paper 14, 10.1038/s41746‐019‐0090‐4
4. Fleisch E Franz C Herrmann A (2021) The Digital Pill: What Everyone Should Know about the Future of Our Healthcare System, Emerald Publishing: Bingley,UK, 10.1108/9781787566750
5. Katz DL Frates EP Bonnet JP Gupta SK Vartiainen E and Carmona RH (2018) Lifestyle as Medicine: The Case for a True Health Initiative American Journal of Health Promotion 32(6), 1452-1458, 10.1177/0890117117705949
6. Kvedar, JC, Fogel AL, Elenko E and Zohar D (2016) Digital medicine’s march on chronic disease Nature Biotechnology 34(3), 239-246, 10.1038/nbt.3495
7. Kowatsch T Otto L Harperink S Cotti A Schlieter H (2019) A Design and Evaluation Framework for Digital Health Interventions it ‐ Information Technology 61(5‐6), 253‐263, 10.1515/itit‐2019‐0019
8. Kowatsch T Fleisch E (2021) Digital Health Interventions, in: Gassmann O Ferrandina F (eds): Connected Business: Creating Value in the Networked Economy, Springer: Berlin, 10.1007/978-3-030-76897-3_4
9. Kowatsch T Schachner T Harperink S et al (2021) Conversational Agents as Mediating Social Actors in Chronic Disease Management Involving Health Care Professionals, Patients, and Family Members: Multisite Single-Arm Feasibility Study, Journal of Medical Internet Research (JMIR) 23(2):e25060 10.2196/25060
10. Kowatsch T Lohse KM Erb V et al (2021) Hybrid Ubiquitous Coaching With a Novel Combination of Mobile and Holographic Conversational Agents Targeting Adherence to Home Exercises: 4 Design and Evaluation Studies, Journal of Medical Internet Research (JMIR) 23(2):e23612, 10.2196/23612
11. Nahum‐Shani I Smith SN Spring BJ Collins LM Witkiewitz K Tewari A Murphy SA (2018) Just-in-Time Adaptive Interventions (JITAIs) in Mobile Health: Key Components and Design Principles for Ongoing Health Behavior Support Annals of Behavioral Medicine 52 (6), 446‐462, 10.1007/s12160-016-9830-8
12. Sim, I. (2019) Mobile Devices and Health The New England Journal of Medicine, 381(10), 956‐ 968, 10.1056/NEJMra1806949

Mandatory material

The mandatory material will be provided via the online learning platform.

This lecture builds the foundation for the Digital Health Project seminar offered in the spring semester 2021. In that seminar, teams of students will develop a smartphone-based digital health intervention with MobileCoach (www.mobile-coach.eu), an open-source platform for digital health interventions and ecological momentary assessments with the support of the Center for Digital Health Interventions (www.c4dhi.org).