ArticleJMIR formative research2024
Landscape of Digital Technologies Used in the National Health Service in England: Content Analysis.
Article in JMIR formative research, 2024. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 4 papers.
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The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
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Who cites it
4 citing papers in PubMed.
- Telehealth Use and Satisfaction in Primary and Mental Health Care Across 9 High-Income Countries.Mayo Clinic proceedings. Digital health · 2026Article
- Telehealth as a Strategy to Expand Access in Brazil's Unified Health System: Analysis of São Paulo State's Experience Across the Three Levels of Health Care.JMIR formative research · 2026Article
- Digital Information Sharing Before Consultations in General Practice: Protocol for a Scoping Review.JMIR research protocols · 2025Article
- Digital Platforms in Primary Care: Leveraging Asynchronous Consultations to Support Management of Cardiometabolic Diseases and Risk Factors.Journal of primary care & community healthArticle
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Authors and funding
4 authors.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
backgroundIn England, digital technologies are exploited to transform the way health and social care is provided and encompass a wide range of hardware devices and software that are used in all aspects of health care. However, little is known about the extent to which health care providers differ in digital health technology capabilities and how this relates to geographical and regional differences in health care capacities and resources.
objectiveThis paper aims to identify the set of digital technologies that have been deployed by the National Health Services clinical commissioning groups (NHS CCGs) in England. In doing this, we respond to calls to shed light on the internal dynamics and variation in the form of digital capability in England in terms of health service regional differences and health diversity, equity, and inclusion.
methodsWe collected 135 annual reports that belong to 106 NHS CCGs in England, comprising more than 18,000 pages in total, released from 2020 to 2021. Using this data set, we identified 2163 pages related to digital technologies and labeled them using content analysis. We follow the construct taxonomy used by digital options theory, a theory from the management information systems field analyzing organizational resource investment choices, in classifying observed technologies according to digital themes-inherent design patterns that we identified and explained. We then used a hierarchical clustering method to extract groups of NHS CCGs that implement similar technology themes.
resultsWe found 31 technologies from the reports and grouped them into 9 digital themes. The 9 themes were further assigned to 1 of the 3 constructs of digital options theory, the identification of patients' requirements (we identified information portals [76/106], digital health engagement [67/106], and digital inclusion support [45/106]), the development of new work patterns (we identified telehealth [87/106], telemedicine [35/106], and care home technologies [40/106]), the realization of improvements in efficiency and public accessibility (we identified online booking [26/106], online triage [104/106], and digital mental health services [74/106]). The 3 clusters of CCGs are identified based on the 8 themes (Hopkins=0.9914, silhouette=0.186), namely (1) digitally disengaged, (2) digitally engaged, and (3) digital torchbearer.
conclusionsOur findings show prominent digital themes within each construct group, namely information portals, telehealth, and online triage, covering people's fundamental health information needs. Almost half of CCGs fell into the digitally disengaged group, and all London CCGs (5/106) belonged to this group. We propose that practitioners should offer specialized assistance to regions with limited digital engagement, emphasizing digital health literacy, inclusion support, and ongoing evaluation, rather than concentrating solely on technical advancements.
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Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.