The Impact of Digital Platforms and Ecosystems in Healthcare on Value Creation—A Integrative Review and Research Agenda

Abstract

Enabled by technological innovations and the pressure to modernize healthcare systems, the digital transformation is fundamentally changing the healthcare sector. It facilitates strategic alignments that drive significant changes to the creation of value of organizations, as well as to their stakeholders in the sector. One manifestation of this development is the advancement of digital platforms and ecosystems into the sector, impacting established practices. Because of the sector’s low level of platformization, discussions in healthcare have yet to profoundly engage with the impact of these digital architectures. This study provides insights on the ways digital platforms and ecosystems are changing the nature of value creation in healthcare. Based on a literature review, four distinctive changes to the value creation of the sector are identified. Based on the results, lessons from other domains, and the specific dynamics of technical advancements at the intersection of information science and healthcare, an agenda for future research is proposed. This agenda takes social and ethical discussions into consideration and is intended to guide academic discussions to further leverage digital formats to foster collaboration, cooperation and coopetition.

Keywords

• Digital ecosystem
• digital health
• digital platform
• digital transformation
• healthcare 4.0
• value creation