Title: Using digital health to support superior preparedness to enable better preparedness and readiness to combat pandemics: a scoping review

Authors: Nilmini Wickramasinghe; Rima Gibbings

Addresses: Swinburne University of Technology, 1 Johns St., Hawthorn 3122, Australia ' University of North Georgia, 159 Sunset Dr., Dahlonega, GA 30533, USA

Abstract: The COVID-19 pandemic that dominated the world in 2020 causing millions of deaths, severe illness, immense chaos and stress to healthcare systems and services not to mention detrimental effects to economies and the lives of all, has served to highlight key vulnerabilities in most countries; namely, those around not being prepared. Based on the world's experiences through 2020, it has been noted by the WHO that a better state of preparedness would have enabled a better state of readiness to combat the COVID-19 pandemic and thus not only significantly reduce the loss of life but also the catastrophic impacts to the economy and the lives of all people. This paper performs a scoping review to identify and propose an appropriate approach of being better prepared for pandemics and other emergency scenarios.

Keywords: clusters of pneumonia; vulnerable populations; comorbidities; missing data.

DOI: 10.1504/IJNVO.2023.134280

International Journal of Networking and Virtual Organisations, 2023 Vol.29 No.1, pp.1 - 15

Received: 02 Jan 2022
Received in revised form: 02 Nov 2022
Accepted: 03 Nov 2022
Published online: 17 Oct 2023 *

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