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A New Best Practice Guideline: Clinical Practice in a Digital Health Environment
ABSTRACT
Background:
Digital health refers to the field of knowledge and practice associated with the development and use of digital technologies to improve health. To provide comprehensive clinical care, knowledge of digital health technology is becoming essential for all nurses and health providers.
Objective:
In March 2024, the Registered Nurses’ Association of Ontario released a new Best Practice Guideline (BPG) to provide evidence-based recommendations that foster nurses’ ability to maintain, advance, and strengthen professional practice in the context of a digital health environment.
Methods:
The RNAO team worked alongside an expert panel of 17 individuals to develop the BPG, based on the GRADE approach. The expert panel prioritized five research questions and systematic reviews were conducted by guideline developers to answer the questions. Systematic searches looked for relevant studies published in English from January 2017 to July 2022 from 10 databases.
Results:
Two reviewers screened over 22,500 articles for five research questions. After screening, 253 full texts were reviewed for relevance to the research questions and outcomes. 18 articles met the inclusion criteria.
Conclusions:
The new BPG on digital health provides four evidence-based recommendations for nurses and health providers on how to incorporate digital health technologies into clinical practice. One research question resulted in no recommendation due to insufficient evidence. This BPG is intended to be used across all health-care settings.
Citation
