Digital Health for Heart Health
About this Priority Setting Partnership
The PSP defines 'digital technologies' as a broad range of interventions, tools, and services that utilise information communications technology to benefit and improve people's heart health. This includes, but is not limited to, remote care delivery, treatment support, monitoring, and self-management, as well as innovative approaches such as virtual reality, avatars and artificial intelligence.
The Digital Health for Heart Health PSP worked with patients, carers and healthcare professionals to identify and prioritise the unanswered questions about the use of digital technology by patients and their carers in the prevention and management of heart disease and heart conditions.
The Digital Health for Heart Health PSP Top 10 was published in December 2024.
Top 10 priorities
The most important questions
- How can technology help people to prevent and manage a heart problem if they have one?
- How can technology give individualised support to help people manage their heart health?
- How accurate and reliable is technology to measure and manage heart health and heart risk factors?
- What are the differences in outcomes for those who use technology to manage their heart health compared to those who do not?
- How can technology support people with or who are at risk of getting a heart condition to be physically active?
- How can patients feel confident to self-screen the results from technology so that they know when to alert healthcare professionals?
- How accurate and reliable is AI to manage heart health and how can this be monitored?
- How can technology predict when a person with a heart problem is about to have a heart event and help them manage the event?
- Who should monitor and follow up on heart-related data from technology? (e.g. patients or healthcare professionals).
- How can technology give users and their families an early warning about a heart problem and send data to healthcare professionals if needed?
The following questions were also discussed and put in order of priority at the workshop:
- How can over-reliance on technology to help people with their heart health and anxiety about its use be prevented?
- How do remote appointments for heart health compare with seeing a healthcare professional in person?
- How can technology help manage stress mental health and wellness in people with or who are at risk of getting a heart condition?
- How can technology help people to access advice about their heart health when they need it?
- How can access to technology to help manage heart health be more equal (e.g. in rural areas access to internet)?
- How can technology help people with heart failure to monitor and control their symptoms?
- How much do different types of people use technology to manage their heart health and how can this be made more equal?
- How can people who are less confident with technology be helped to use it to manage heart health?
- How can technology to manage heart health be made affordable for users?
- How can technology tell users if their heart function, blood vessels or blood pressure are no longer normal?
Key documents
These documents set out the aims, objectives and commitments of the PSP.
Digital Health for Heart Health PSP protocol
Digital Health for Heart Health PSP Steering Group terms of reference