Executive Summary

Chris Dymek, Ed.D.

Director, Digital Healthcare Research Division

"At AHRQ’s Digital Healthcare Research (DHR) program, our driving purpose is to improve healthcare delivery. By providing evidence-based insights and practical guidelines and resources, we create value for patients and their families, clinicians, and healthcare systems."

A message from the Director of the Digital Healthcare Research Program

As the digital healthcare ecosystem evolves, so must our nation’s research priorities. AHRQ’s DHR program is a vital force in defining and implementing that agenda—and disseminating the resulting evidence to inform policy and improve practice.

Our 2023 Annual Report features stories about AHRQ-funded research projects that examine the real-world use of digital healthcare technologies to engage and empower patients and optimize care delivery for clinicians and health systems. Examples range from simple but impactful safety enhancements to electronic health record systems to advanced decision support tools, novel mobile apps, and sophisticated machine-learning algorithms.

Told by the researchers themselves, these stories explore potentially life-saving applications such as self-management of asthma, prevention of prescription errors, assessment of suicide risk, and timely emergency care for cardiac arrest. Featured researchers also explore technologies with broader implications for patient satisfaction and health, including the use of patient-reported outcome (PRO) measures as well as tools to help patients understand the “Hospital at Home” model of care.

At DHR, we are proud to support research focused on improving the ever-evolving digital healthcare ecosystem. But our work extends beyond producing evidence, and we undertook numerous efforts to ensure that the evidence is understood and used. Of the more than 100 peer-reviewed articles published by our staff and funded researchers, three were named by the American Medical Informatics Association as among the most influential publications in 2023. We also produced a landmark guide to help developers and users of digital healthcare technologies take an intentional approach to healthcare equity.

As noted in this year’s Spotlight, DHR serves as a nexus for research, policy, and practice—bringing real-world insights to bear on policy and practice and, conversely, incorporating the concerns of policymakers and providers into our research agenda. Similarly, we sourced innovative ideas from private industry and nonprofits by hosting a competitive challenge to optimize the future of our CDS Connect platform, which helps accelerate the adoption of standards-based clinical decision support.

As patients and providers encounter more and more advanced digital healthcare technologies, DHR is committed to continuing our service in this capacity.

We welcome comments or questions about this report or our program at DigitalHealthcareResearch@ahrq.hhs.gov.