Digital Transformation in Health Administration: A Review of Recent Innovations

Abstract

Health administration has gone digital in the blink of an eye in the past few years — a digital transformation motivated both by the COVID-19 pandemic and our need for ever more efficient, patient- centred, and data-driven healthcare systems. We assess emerging methods that have transformed health administration, such as telehealth and EHRs, and AI, data analytics, and interoperability. In this paper, we show how these technologies are improving decision making, streamlining processes, enabling broad patient access, and facilitating population health management. The review also points out obstacles like risks to cybersecurity, data privacy issues, high costs of implementation, and differences in digital literacy, while acknowledging the benefits of digital tools are substantial. Identifying theoretical, empirical and policy developments, this review offers a contemporary summary of how digital innovations are transforming the role of the health administrator in the years to come (2020–2025) across the spectrum of healthcare governance. Results highlight the need for specific and targeted planning ahead of time, investments in digitization, and training of the workforce to expedite digital transformation in health administration in a sustainable and just manner.