Beyond the digital health tsunami: reaffirming biomedical and health informatics as the scientific foundation of digital healthcare transformation
Clinical Snapshot
PICO Framework
| P — Population | Academic institutions, healthcare organisations, and professionals involved in digital health and biomedical informatics |
| I — Intervention | Conceptual framework positioning digital health as a translational layer within biomedical and health informatics (BMHI) |
| C — Comparator | Current paradigms treating digital health as independent discipline or replacement for BMHI |
| O — Outcomes | Disciplinary clarity, educational framework coherence, professional identity, and scientific rigour in digital health implementation |
Bottom Line
This conceptual analysis argues that digital health should be positioned as a translational implementation layer within the established discipline of biomedical and health informatics (BMHI), rather than as an independent field. The author contends that BMHI provides essential theoretical foundations including data representation, clinical reasoning, evaluation science, and governance frameworks that digital health lacks autonomously. While digital health has increased visibility and accelerated technology adoption, the paper argues this has created conceptual confusion and risks weakening scientific rigour. The proposed reintegration model positions digital health as the applied, practice-oriented component of BMHI, potentially improving educational coherence and professional identity. For Australian healthcare, this framework could inform university curricula, professional development pathways, and ensure digital health initiatives maintain scientific validity required for TGA compliance and sustainable implementation.
Key Findings
Effect Size: Not applicable - conceptual analysis
Primary Outcome: Digital health identified as implementation-oriented domain lacking autonomous theoretical foundations
Nnt Or Sensitivity: Three evolutionary scenarios examined with reintegration model preferred for scientific coherence
Clinical Application
High feasibility for adoption in educational curricula and professional development frameworks Relevant to Australian digital health strategy, university informatics programmes, and RACGP digital health competencies. Aligns with TGA digital therapeutics regulation requiring scientific rigour Healthcare informatics professionals, academic institutions, and digital health implementers globally
Abstract
Digital health (DH) has emerged as the dominant terminology for technology-enabled healthcare, reshaping institutional discourse, educational programmes and policy agendas. DH is often portrayed as a novel discipline that could supersede Biomedical and Health Informatics (BMHI), creating conceptual ambiguity and the risk of weakening scientific rigour in the design, evaluation and governance of digital interventions. This paper clarifies BMHI's disciplinary identity, characterises DH as a practice-oriented and implementation-oriented domain, and establishes the epistemic relationship between the two in order to inform academic strategy, curricula and professional identity. A comparative conceptual analysis examined scope, theoretical foundations, methodological approaches, educational frameworks, professional structures and stakeholder ecosystems in both domains, informed by recent debates on degree programmes and workforce training. We found that BMHI is a mature scientific discipline with explicit theoretical foundations encompassing data representation, knowledge modelling, clinical reasoning, decision support, interoperability, sociotechnical analysis, evaluation science, safety, ethics and governance. DH, by contrast, represents an implementation-oriented translational domain that operationalises BMHI through products, services and organisational transformation (eg, telehealth, mobile applications, artificial intelligence-enabled clinical services). While DH has amplified visibility and accelerated adoption, it lacks autonomous theoretical foundations and depends on BMHI for scientific validity, safety and sustainability. Three evolutionary scenarios are examined: DH absorbing BMHI (epistemically incoherent), convergence as parallel disciplines (conceptually flawed), and reintegration of DH within BMHI as its applied layer (scientifically coherent and strategically sustainable) but requiring disciplinary communication, curricular alignment and institutional leadership explicitly positioning DH as a translational layer of BMHI.
References
- 1.Séroussi, B. (2026). Beyond the digital health tsunami: reaffirming biomedical and health informatics as the scientific foundation of digital healthcare transformation. BMJ Health & Care Informatics, 33(1), e102025. https://doi.org/10.1136/bmjhci-2025-102025
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