A scoping review of frameworks evaluating digital health applications
Objectives Despite rapid technological advances, the adoption and deployment of digital health and virtual reality (VR) applications in healthcare appears to be progressing slowly. This scoping review is part of the Scale-Up4Rehab (SU4R) project, which aims to create a virtual rehabilitation clinic...
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| Format: | Article |
| Language: | English |
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SAGE Publishing
2025-08-01
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| Series: | Digital Health |
| Online Access: | https://doi.org/10.1177/20552076251315297 |
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| author | Orla Deegan Eoghan O Riain Denis Martin Mai Yoshitani Mairead O’Donoghue Keith Smart Sinead McMahon Trish O’Sullivan Declan J O’Sullivan Aaron Cole Ciara Hanrahan Catherine Blake Joseph G. McVeigh Brona M Fullen David Murphy |
| author_facet | Orla Deegan Eoghan O Riain Denis Martin Mai Yoshitani Mairead O’Donoghue Keith Smart Sinead McMahon Trish O’Sullivan Declan J O’Sullivan Aaron Cole Ciara Hanrahan Catherine Blake Joseph G. McVeigh Brona M Fullen David Murphy |
| author_sort | Orla Deegan |
| collection | DOAJ |
| description | Objectives Despite rapid technological advances, the adoption and deployment of digital health and virtual reality (VR) applications in healthcare appears to be progressing slowly. This scoping review is part of the Scale-Up4Rehab (SU4R) project, which aims to create a virtual rehabilitation clinic hosting high-quality digital health interventions. The aim of this review was to identify existing high-quality digital health evaluation frameworks, and from these, extract criteria to inform a new set of guidelines for assessing the applications that will be hosted on the SU4R platform. Methods The review followed Arksey and O’Malley's scoping review framework and was reported according to the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses (PRISMA) guidelines. A search strategy that included relevant keywords encompassing the domains of interest; digital health, evaluation frameworks and digital health applications was created between January 2007 and December 2023, across seven medical and computer science databases. Data from each study were extracted by a team of four reviewers using a customized data extraction tool. Results The review included 18 frameworks from 11 countries, incorporating 775 criteria. Nine evaluation frameworks were identified from the included papers (n = 12) and a further nine frameworks from grey literature. The criteria were grouped into 19 categories, with the largest proportion of identified criteria grouped into the categories ‘Data Security and Privacy’ and ‘Validation’. Conclusion The criteria extracted from the reviewed frameworks will contribute to the creation of a comprehensive evaluation framework. This new evaluation framework will form part of the approval process for the SU4R Virtual Rehabilitation Clinic. This will facilitate a rigorous selection process for the digital health and VR applications to be hosted on the virtual clinic. |
| format | Article |
| id | doaj-art-e5adb7e8870546aa95a6e9bb76297535 |
| institution | Kabale University |
| issn | 2055-2076 |
| language | English |
| publishDate | 2025-08-01 |
| publisher | SAGE Publishing |
| record_format | Article |
| series | Digital Health |
| spelling | doaj-art-e5adb7e8870546aa95a6e9bb762975352025-08-20T03:47:16ZengSAGE PublishingDigital Health2055-20762025-08-011110.1177/20552076251315297A scoping review of frameworks evaluating digital health applicationsOrla Deegan0Eoghan O Riain1Denis Martin2Mai Yoshitani3Mairead O’Donoghue4Keith Smart5Sinead McMahon6Trish O’Sullivan7Declan J O’Sullivan8Aaron Cole9Ciara Hanrahan10Catherine Blake11Joseph G. McVeigh12Brona M Fullen13David Murphy14 Department of Rehabilitation Sciences, College of Health Sciences, QU Health Sector, , Doha, Qatar Discipline of Physiotherapy, School of Clinical Therapies, College of Medicine and Health, , Cork, Ireland Centre for Rehabilitation, , Middlesbrough, UK Clinical Development, Clinical Development Centre, , Tokyo, Japan School of Public Health, Physiotherapy and Sports Science, , Dublin, Ireland School of Public Health, Physiotherapy and Sports Science, , Dublin, Ireland School of Public Health, Physiotherapy and Sports Science, , Dublin, Ireland Discipline of Physiotherapy, School of Clinical Therapies, College of Medicine and Health, , Cork, Ireland Discipline of Physiotherapy, School of Clinical Therapies, College of Medicine and Health, , Cork, Ireland Discipline of Physiotherapy, School of Clinical Therapies, College of Medicine and Health, , Cork, Ireland Discipline of Physiotherapy, School of Clinical Therapies, College of Medicine and Health, , Cork, Ireland School of Public Health, Physiotherapy and Sports Science, , Dublin, Ireland Discipline of Physiotherapy, School of Clinical Therapies, College of Medicine and Health, , Cork, Ireland School of Public Health, Physiotherapy and Sports Science, , Dublin, Ireland School of Computer Science & Information Technology, , Cork, IrelandObjectives Despite rapid technological advances, the adoption and deployment of digital health and virtual reality (VR) applications in healthcare appears to be progressing slowly. This scoping review is part of the Scale-Up4Rehab (SU4R) project, which aims to create a virtual rehabilitation clinic hosting high-quality digital health interventions. The aim of this review was to identify existing high-quality digital health evaluation frameworks, and from these, extract criteria to inform a new set of guidelines for assessing the applications that will be hosted on the SU4R platform. Methods The review followed Arksey and O’Malley's scoping review framework and was reported according to the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses (PRISMA) guidelines. A search strategy that included relevant keywords encompassing the domains of interest; digital health, evaluation frameworks and digital health applications was created between January 2007 and December 2023, across seven medical and computer science databases. Data from each study were extracted by a team of four reviewers using a customized data extraction tool. Results The review included 18 frameworks from 11 countries, incorporating 775 criteria. Nine evaluation frameworks were identified from the included papers (n = 12) and a further nine frameworks from grey literature. The criteria were grouped into 19 categories, with the largest proportion of identified criteria grouped into the categories ‘Data Security and Privacy’ and ‘Validation’. Conclusion The criteria extracted from the reviewed frameworks will contribute to the creation of a comprehensive evaluation framework. This new evaluation framework will form part of the approval process for the SU4R Virtual Rehabilitation Clinic. This will facilitate a rigorous selection process for the digital health and VR applications to be hosted on the virtual clinic.https://doi.org/10.1177/20552076251315297 |
| spellingShingle | Orla Deegan Eoghan O Riain Denis Martin Mai Yoshitani Mairead O’Donoghue Keith Smart Sinead McMahon Trish O’Sullivan Declan J O’Sullivan Aaron Cole Ciara Hanrahan Catherine Blake Joseph G. McVeigh Brona M Fullen David Murphy A scoping review of frameworks evaluating digital health applications Digital Health |
| title | A scoping review of frameworks evaluating digital health applications |
| title_full | A scoping review of frameworks evaluating digital health applications |
| title_fullStr | A scoping review of frameworks evaluating digital health applications |
| title_full_unstemmed | A scoping review of frameworks evaluating digital health applications |
| title_short | A scoping review of frameworks evaluating digital health applications |
| title_sort | scoping review of frameworks evaluating digital health applications |
| url | https://doi.org/10.1177/20552076251315297 |
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