Using Digital Technologies in the Measurement of Health Outcomes

Digital technologies have pervaded medicine and healthcare systems and brought innovations with unprecedented speed, benefiting all stakeholders from patients to healthcare professionals, researchers and administrators. Health outcomes are defined as the measurable change in health as a result of interventions. The ultimate goal of medicine and health systems is to improve patients' health outcomes. Digital technologies have brought a revolution in the measurement of health outcomes from sensors and digital biomarkers recording physiological and behavioural data to the more precise measurement of patient reported outcomes and experiences - how themselves feel about the effect of health interventions or the participation in healthcare. From the analysis of big data to simple web surveys, the new possibilities and innovative solutions bring new insights but new methodological challenges and ethical dilemmas as well. This presentation will summarise why health outcomes matter to health economists and what are the contributions and ongoing research projects of the HECON - Health Economics Research Center in the measurement of health outcomes via digital technologies.