Bridging digital transformation in public health with digital responsibility

Research output: Contribution to journalResearch articleInvitedpeer-review

Contributors

Abstract

The rapid digitalization of public health systems demands a framework to ensure the responsible implementation of digital technologies. The Digital Responsibility (DR) framework, proposed by Trier et al. (2023), can serve this purpose but requires further contextualization — an objective pursued in this paper. We apply a content analysis approach to map the DR principles and levels to the Public Health Agency Maturity Model (PHAMM), which is widely used in the German public health service (PHS) to assess digital maturity and derive actions for its advancements. By mapping 354 PHAMM criteria to the DR framework, we identified areas for improvement in both models, contextualized DR for the PHS by identifying 16 subthemes, and extended the DR framework. The extended framework was discussed and evaluated in a focus group with nine experts. This process led to complementing the existing DR levels with an inter- and intracorporate relation and introduces an additional DR principle (Security). Moreover, the study draws crosscutting lessons learned.

Details

Original languageEnglish
Article number29
Journal Electronic Markets: The International Journal on Networked Business
Volume36
Issue number1
Publication statusPublished - 3 Feb 2026
Peer-reviewedYes

External IDs

ORCID /0000-0003-2935-303X/work/207307645
ORCID /0000-0002-6513-9017/work/207308185
Mendeley 854a6235-7edd-3b68-baed-6742805316f8
unpaywall 10.1007/s12525-025-00868-7
Scopus 105031822434

Keywords

Sustainable Development Goals

Keywords

  • Digital Responsibility, Digitalization, Maturity model, Public health, Public health agencies