Exploring the societal impact of digital health research and innovation

Discover how our combination of data-driven insights and analysis in digital health research and innovation highlight global societal impact in our latest report

Digital health encompasses the use of digital technologies such as mobile apps, wearables and telemedicine, to improve health and healthcare delivery. The digital health landscape is evolving rapidly. Advances in fields such as technology, biomedicine and computer science are improving what healthcare can do, creating new commercial and clinical opportunities that benefit research institutions, commercial organizations, healthcare providers, funders and governments - and ultimately, the people they serve.

In recent years, investors have shown significant interest in digital health start-ups, pouring substantial funding - £31 billion in 2021 and £21 billion in 2022 - into this sector. As a result, the field of digital health research is experiencing a golden age. However, for university researchers accustomed to focusing on publications and long-term projects, navigating this fast-paced ecosystem can be challenging. The question remains: How can these researchers actively contribute to the digital health revolution and leverage its potential benefits for public health?"

Collaboration for Digital Health 2024 event

Earlier this year we collaborated with Times Higher Education on a study exploring the integration of digital technologies with conventional healthcare. The initial findings were shared with around 200 research leaders from 23 countries who gathered at Stanford University for Digital Health 2024. The event was sponsored by the Stanford Center for Digital Health, the Stanford Healthcare Innovation Lab and Times Higher Education, with Clarivate providing essential research and analysis.

For this project, we integrated multiple data sources from across the Clarivate portfolio, alongside a taxonomy enabling us to categorize digital health into major fields which was developed by the analysts in our Life Sciences & Healthcare segment. This allowed us to construct cross-dimensional perspectives that shed light on how digital health benefits academia, industry and society.

The importance of demonstrating societal impact

Research is essential for helping us discover and verify our world's expanding knowledge, which also offers significant benefits to our society. Governments and other research funders recognize the importance of a strong research base to guide humanity's development. Our latest Global Research Report from the Institute for Scientific Information (ISI)™ illustrates how we can use our vast data resources to define and track societal impact - how research ultimately benefits humankind downstream, from lab to industry to everyday life.

Understanding the societal impact of research is essential for making sure there is political support for publicly funded research. At the ISI, we have been investigating these topics for decades. Journal publications and citation indicators are often used to measure academic excellence. While these metrics are important, we know funded research provides many other benefits beyond academia, which is why we must also consider external societal impact indicators such as policy documents and patents.

At Clarivate™, our extensive data resources and expert analysts spanning research, industry and healthcare are tapped into the heart of this diverse space, so we are uniquely positioned to assess the societal impact of digital health and provide transformative intelligence on this fast-moving field.

Explosion of digital health research

The rise of wearable technology, fitness applications and telemedicine since the COVID-19 pandemic has driven significant growth in digital health research. Our review of the trusted journals in the Web of Science™ database revealed a remarkable increase in publications in digital health in recent years. From just 39 publications in 2013, the number soared nearly 70-fold to 2,641 in 2022, totaling 7,944 over the decade.

This increase in how we use and access digital health demonstrates societal impact on many levels, including:

• Improving access to and the quality of medical care
• Enabling more personalized care with greater patient involvement and commitment
• Fostering a shift towards preventive rather than reactive care
• Streamlining healthcare delivery
• Reducing costs

Figure 1: Percent growth in papers published in subfields related to digital health in journals indexed in the Web of Science, 2013-2022: AI and advanced analytics papers grew 2,724% since 2013. (Data source: Web of Science, Clarivate).

AI trends in digital health

From the data, we can clearly see that AI and advanced analytics have grown significantly over the past decade. From 93 papers in 2013, the publication pool expanded to 7,662 papers by 2022. Interestingly, this trend predates the popularization of AI technologies like ChatGPT.

Our full report identifies both the top countries/regions and institutions ranked by output of articles on digital health and AI-related methods.

The role of corporate patents

To deepen our digital health analysis, the Clarivate Center for IP and Innovation Research analyzed patents in the Derwent World Patents Index™, identifying around 140,000 digital health patent inventions. We discovered that the rate of patent filings in this space grew even faster than the rate of published academic papers from 2013 to 2022, with most patents held by corporations. This kind of corporate activity is usually aimed at securing intellectual capital and market advantage, giving us an interesting perspective on the focus in this field.

Our analysis also revealed that leading innovative corporations with strong digital health patent portfolios include both established firms and startups. The diverse mix of firms, such as Snap, AstraZeneca, Nike, Johnson & Johnson, Eli Lilly and Nvidia, highlights how the digital health space is full of intersection and collaboration.

Looking to the future of measuring and tracking societal impact

When assessing how research impacts society, establishing universally applicable, verifiable and replicable indicators is key - a challenge that must be addressed across different industries. Balancing internal and external research impacts is essential to capturing the total value of research and understanding how it contributes to society's prosperity, well-being, economic growth and environmental impact.

At Clarivate, we integrate enriched data, insightful analytics, workflow solutions and domain expertise across knowledge, research, health and innovation, bringing clarity to the complex. This ISI report demonstrates our ability to incorporate research, commercial and healthcare data, forming a solid foundation to track the lasting societal impact of research on our world.

Read our ISI Global Research Report: Research impact in society and the economy: The digital health revolution in medical care

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