In healthcare, trust is everything. Patients trust their doctors, doctors trust the medicines they prescribe, and governments trust the regulatory frameworks that ensure safety and efficacy. The pharmaceutical industry has built a robust infrastructure over decades, ensuring that every drug goes through rigorous testing, healthcare professionals receive specialised training, and a prescription system governs safe distribution. This infrastructure provides confidence in the medicines we take, supporting adoption at scale.
Now, contrast this with digital health. While there are about 30,000 approved drugs, there are over 300,000 digital health tools available today. Research shows that less than 20% of these tools are safe and effective, yet every day, 5 million people download a digital health app. The potential for impact is enormous—but so is the risk. Without clear systems in place, patients and clinicians are left to navigate an overwhelming and often unverified market, leading to uncertainty and hesitation in adoption.
The Missing Infrastructure in Digital Health
Digital health presents an unprecedented opportunity to transform care, offering solutions for disease management, mental health support, and preventive care. However, simply setting standards for safety and efficacy isn’t enough. Without a structured infrastructure—akin to what we have in pharmaceuticals—the real-world adoption of digital health tools remains fragmented and slow.
For digital health to become a trusted pillar of healthcare, we need to establish the following key components:
- Robust Testing and Certification – Just as pharmaceuticals go through rigorous clinical trials, digital health tools must be assessed across multiple dimensions, including clinical safety, security, usability, and effectiveness. One-off evaluations are insufficient—continuous monitoring is essential as software updates can change functionality and compliance status.
- An Educated Workforce – Healthcare professionals receive years of training on medicines, yet many have little to no education on digital health technologies. If we expect clinicians to integrate digital tools into practice, we must invest in training and guidance to ensure they can confidently prescribe and monitor digital interventions.
- A Prescription and Deployment System – Just as medicines require a structured prescribing and dispensing system, digital health tools need a regulated framework for deployment. Clinicians must have a trusted platform from which to recommend validated digital solutions, ensuring the right tools reach the right patients at the right time.
- Reimbursement and Funding Models – One of the reasons pharmaceuticals are so deeply embedded in healthcare is that they are reimbursed. Without financial mechanisms to support the adoption of digital health tools, they remain inaccessible to many and struggle to integrate into mainstream healthcare. Governments, payers, and insurers must develop pathways for digital health reimbursement to drive meaningful adoption.
Moving from Standards to Systems
Regulatory standards alone will not bring digital health’s potential to life. While having a framework for compliance is a step forward, without a full ecosystem—including assessment, professional education, distribution infrastructure, and reimbursement pathways—digital health will remain on the sidelines rather than becoming a central component of healthcare.
The scale of digital health adoption is only increasing. With millions downloading tools every day, the responsibility to ensure safety and efficacy is greater than ever. We must move beyond fragmented solutions and work toward a comprehensive system that builds trust at every level—patients, clinicians, and healthcare providers alike.
The opportunity is here. Now, we need the infrastructure to support it.
What do you think? Does digital health need a stronger foundation to build trust and drive adoption?
I’d love to hear your thoughts—drop a comment below and join the conversation! And if this topic sparks your interest, let’s keep the discussion going at the ICT Health World Conference in January 2026, where we’ll be diving deep into Building Trust in Digital Health. See you there!
