Accelerating digital health innovation adoption: prioritizing critical enablers of digital therapeutics for diabetes care in India
Kavita R. Garg, Gaurav Kabra, Krishan Kumar Pandey, Vinaytosh Mishra, Ashish Kumar KaushalPurpose
Digital therapeutics (DTx) are an emerging class of digital health innovation, increasingly recognized as critical for improving healthcare delivery, patient outcomes and sustainable health systems. Despite promising benefits, health care organizations are yet to realize the full benefits of DTx. Several factors influence the adoption of DTx within health information technology (HIT) ecosystems in emerging economies, such as India. From a strategic and system-level perspective, identification and prioritization of these factors is crucial to maximize their practical impact, given that some factors have more significant impact on outcomes than others. This exploratory study aims to identify and prioritize the enablers of DTx adoption for diabetes care in India.
Design/methodology/approach
The study adopted a sequential mixed-methods approach involving multiple stakeholders across two phases. Phase 1 involved in-depth semi-structured interviews with domain experts followed by inductive thematic analysis to explore the enablers of DTx adoption. Phase 2 prioritized these enablers using the best-worst method (BWM), based on expert judgment to inform decision-making. The robustness of the ranking was assessed using sensitivity analysis.
Findings
Qualitative analysis reveals 20 enablers of DTx adoption, which were broadly aligned with the dimensions of the human–organizational–technology–environmental (HOTE) framework. Quantitative analysis using BWM revealed the dominance of human-centric enablers, followed by organizational, environmental and technology-focused enablers. In particular, human enablers such as “Training for healthcare professionals” and “Patient education and engagement” emerged as the most influential enablers.
Practical implications
The findings offer practical, decision-supported insights based on expert-ranked enablers of DTx adoption, which is fundamentally a sociotechnical challenge that requires coordinated efforts across stakeholders to strengthen human capabilities, organizational readiness and secure data-sharing platforms. The results highlight the need for strong human engagement, leadership support and clear, enabling implementation regulations to facilitate DTx adoption.
Originality/value
The study provides a context-specific exploratory prioritization of the enablers of DTx adoption in emerging economies, such as India. The findings are based on expert judgment and offer initial decision-support guidance for practitioners and policymakers to accelerate digital health innovations adoption within HIT ecosystems.