Digital health is defined as, ‘the convergence of digital technologies with health, healthcare, living, and society to enhance the efficiency of healthcare delivery and make medicines more personalized and precise’.² 

In the United States, health disparities persist, and health equity remains imperceptible for vulnerable and underserved populations.  Digital health technologies (DHT) have the potential to transform the healthcare delivery system, offers great promise in addressing and reducing health disparities by improving communication and information flow between providers and patients.^1,3   Additionally, patients and consumers can use digital health to access to their own health information, as well as better manage and track their health and wellness related activities.⁴  Providers and stakeholders are using digital health technologies to reduce inefficiencies, improve access, reduce cost, and increase quality.  DHT can also help health care providers, insurers, and others analyze electronic data about clinical experiences to identify unmet needs and measure treatment outcomes so that interventions can be tailored to patients’ unique characteristics and circumstances.⁹   This could have a sea change effect on health and health care disparities.

Digital technologies have transformed how people globally communicate, socialize, learn, work, and increasingly intersect with the healthcare system. Smart devices and wearable technologies are becoming increasingly popular throughout society.  The expansion of cellphone technologies ease pressure on limited healthcare resources and democratize access to health care worldwide.⁵  

From Health Information Technologies (HIT), to wireless gateways and connectivity, biosensors and wearable personal technology, to precision medicine, mHealth, and Artificial Intelligence (AI), these are just a few of the 21^st century tools moving health care toward a patient-centric model. Studies confirm HIT holds the potential to improve the quality, safety, and equity of health care, however it also has the potential to unintentionally increase disparities in health and health care.  There are a variety of sociocultural, economic, human factors, and environmental issues at play with HIT that could compromise health equity—by leading to differential benefits, across populations, that increase rather than reduce disparities.⁶

In an era of such rapid healthcare disruption, what lies ahead for health care and efforts to achieve health equity?  Will medicine and patients of the future be much different from today due to the development of modern digital technology and mobile devices?  Are digital health technologies equalizing access to quality care?  Can we expect a transformation of medical practice from the population-based approach treating illness to individualized medicine while genome and digital technologies drive such transformation?^{7, 8}

The Reede Scholars, Inc.  10^th Annual Health Equity Symposium will explore opportunities and  challenges for innovative digital tools and the Internet to improve health and health care.  Additionally, we will outline mechanisms in which providers, payers, and policymakers leverage digital health to influence health equity.