Patient-clinician digital health interventions have been described by the World Health Organization as “targeted patient/client communication” [1] and have become increasingly popular in health care settings [2]. Such interventions can support patients and caregivers in navigating a complex health system by utilizing information technologies to facilitate communication between parties [1,3]. Digital health interventions that use platform-based technology to facilitate communication and information-sharing between patients and clinicians have the potential to improve care coordination and outcomes during care transitions.

Specifically, asynchronous digital platforms such as web-based or mobile applications contain information that is shared or stored between patients and clinicians. These digital platforms often include patient information and education for discharge planning, follow-up appointments and services, patient empowerment and engagement, and health status updates [1]. In a recent scoping review by Zhang and colleagues [4], the role of digital health interventions for patients with hip fractures was examined. Results of the scoping review indicated that digital health interventions were generally used to support health care providers in the care of such patients. In another systematic review by Free and colleagues [3], digital health interventions were shown to have increased the engagement of patients in their health care journey and a corresponding reduction in hospital admissions.

Engaging patients in their care through digital health interventions is possible given the widespread use of internet-based personal communication devices [5] and the effective use of such interventions with patients and their clinicians. Although asynchronous digital platforms can sometimes be challenging, especially in relation to technological issues [6], successful use of these platforms has been described with patients living with diabetes [7,8], cardiovascular disease [9,10], chronic obstructive pulmonary disease [11], and patients recovering post surgery [12-14].

The multi-service and multi-sector coordination of care after an acute event or diagnosis can be complicated for patients and caregivers to navigate. After acute care admission, patients often receive inadequate information about discharge instructions [15], whereas others have unanswered questions [16]. Some studies have described how patients may experience poor retention of verbal instructions during post-discharge periods [17,18], and how effective education and written discharge instructions may help improve a patient’s understanding and facilitate transition from hospital to home [19-23]. A critical gap that has been identified is poor communication between clinicians and patients and their caregivers [24,25]. Digital health interventions can provide opportunities for ongoing support from clinicians to patients and their caregivers [12], which can improve the overall level of communication and lead to better adherence to care instructions [26].

The emerging research highlighting the benefits of patient engagement [27] reinforces the importance of developing patient-centered discharge planning processes [28]. This may include education for patients and their caregivers regarding their health conditions, medication, and common symptoms; a mechanism for exchanging questions and obtaining feedback from patients; and guidance on when to seek appropriate medical care or follow-ups. Using integrated [29] and holistic patient and caregiver interventions [19-23,30], and digital platforms [31] in particular, can help minimize avoidable readmissions and other challenges with the transition of patients from hospital to their homes. Digital health interventions should be inclusive and consider unique patient characteristics such as age, disability, and level of cognition to optimize success [32]. The usability of digital health interventions for patients and clinicians is also crucial for their successful uptake [33].

Despite the widespread development and use of information technology [5], the desire of patients and caregivers for readily available information [34], and the need for better engaging patients in their care process to optimize patient outcomes, only limited research has examined the specific platform-based patient-clinician digital health interventions that are in use for discharge and care transitions.

Our goal is to explore the available literature, specifically (1) to examine the impact of platform-based digital health interventions specific to care transitions on patient outcomes, and (2) to identify the barriers to and enablers for the uptake and implementation of these digital health interventions. The findings from this work would inform future work on the “MyPath to Home” digital health intervention [35].

The scoping review began in September 2022 and is expected to be completed in August 2023. We have identified a total of 8333 articles. The screening process took place between September 2022 and February 2023, and data extraction is expected to be completed in April 2023. Data analyses and final results will be submitted to a peer-reviewed journal in August 2023.

Through this review, we intend to provide an overview of the current state of research on platform-based, patient-clinician digital health interventions for care transitions, including a discussion of the different types of platforms and interventions that have been studied, the evidence for their effectiveness, and the barriers to and enablers for future research in this area.

Overall, we will provide a comprehensive picture of the current state of knowledge on the use of digital health interventions in care transitions, and the potential for these interventions to improve patient outcomes. We expect to find a wide variety of postcare interventions, some gaps in the quality of the research evidence, as well as a lack of detailed information on the digital health interventions. Our results will include an overview of patient-clinician digital health interventions for discharge or care transitions, as well as barriers to and enablers for their implementation. In addition, this review is expected to identify research gaps that will inform the development of future patient-clinician digital health interventions.

Our review has several strengths and limitations. We designed an in-depth a priori protocol. The search strategy was developed and peer-reviewed by a research librarian with extensive knowledge in scoping and systematic reviews.  However, we anticipate that the digital health interventions will be heterogeneous, making it more difficult to make comparisons and draw specific conclusions.

The results of our review would be beneficial to various stakeholders such as researchers, clinicians, administrators, and policymakers. We will disseminate our findings through publication in a peer-reviewed journal as well as by presenting our results at a scientific conference.