Title: Challenges faced in developing career pathways in digital health
Abstract:
Background: Digital health is a dynamic field that constantly innovates in technology and health. Therefore, professionals must have digital competence to meet the requirements of the labour market. The digital health team must combine health and technology expertise and diverse knowledge fields in order to achieve the project's objectives. The recruitment process of team members is influenced by many factors relating to the nature of digital health, which poses many challenges in the recruitment and identification of careers in this field.
Objective: To explore variables that influence career pathways and staffing issues in digital health.
Methodology: A comprehensive search of electronic databases including CINAHL, PubMed, Scopus, and PsycINFO were conducted for studies published between 2018 to 2025. Articles included if they discussed factors influencing the implementation of digital health. Data were extracted based on relevance to organisational staff mapping factors and/or developing career pathways. The variables extracted were analysed using a thematic approach to cluster the data categorically
Results: The scoping review of influencing variables yielded 11475 records and finally 53 reports included for the review. The synthesis identified multiple influencing factors categorised under: (1) Existing digital health strategies, governance and licensing legislations, (2) digital maturity level expressed in terms of workforce readiness, leadership and organisational transformation approach, and technological solutions adopted.
Conclusion: The scope assessment highlights the complex and multifaceted nature of factors influencing the structure and strategic allocation of digital health teams as needed. Future research should focus on developing a targeted strategy to address these challenges and integrating local organizational structures and human resources capabilities.
Future implications: Understanding the challenges faced in the field can guide future research in developing and/or adopting a standardised conceptual framework that is combined with identifying an organisational team structure that can accommodate the multifaceted nature of digital health.
