The Path to a Modular and Standards-based Digital Health Ecosystem

TL;DR

This paper presents the Stanford Spezi ecosystem, a modular, standards-based open-source platform designed to address key challenges in digital health software engineering, such as data heterogeneity, standardization, reuse, security, and privacy.

Contribution

It introduces a novel open-source ecosystem that enables flexible module integration and fosters community-driven development for digital health applications.

Findings

Spezi simplifies integration of heterogeneous health data.

It promotes software reuse and standardization in digital health.

The ecosystem enhances security and privacy considerations.

Abstract

Software engineering for digital health applications entails several challenges, including heterogeneous data acquisition, data standardization, software reuse, security, and privacy considerations. We explore these challenges and how our Stanford Spezi ecosystem addresses these challenges by providing a modular and standards-based open-source digital health ecosystem. Spezi enables developers to select and integrate modules according to their needs and facilitates an open-source community to democratize access to building digital health innovations.