My Rx Pad What is digital health? Digital health is the use of software, sensors, connectivity, and data to support health and care. It includes health and wellness apps, wearables such as smartwatches and rings, continuous glucose monitors, telehealth and virtual visits, remote patient monitoring, digital therapeutics (DTx), prescription digital therapeutics, and AI-enabled tools including symptom checkers and AI health assistants. Some tools are regulated by the FDA as Software as a Medical Device (SaMD); most wellness apps are not. This plain-language guide from Digital.Health, medically reviewed by Daniel Kraft, MD, explains the categories of digital health tools, how AI-enabled care works, privacy and HIPAA considerations, cost and insurance coverage, and how patients, caregivers, and health consumers can evaluate and choose trustworthy digital health solutions.
What is digital health — and what can it do for you?
Apps, wearables, virtual visits, AI assistants — digital tools are becoming part of everyday health care. This guide explains what they are, how they’re regulated, what they cost, and how to choose ones you can trust. No jargon, no hype.
Digital health, defined simply.
DefinitionDigital health is the use of software, sensors, connectivity, and data — from smartphone apps and wearables to telehealth and artificial intelligence — to help people stay well, manage conditions, and get better care.
If you’ve tracked your steps on a watch, seen a doctor over video, refilled a prescription in an app, or asked an AI assistant about a symptom, you’ve already used digital health. It isn’t one product or one technology — it’s a broad family of tools that put more health information and capability directly in your hands, and connect you to your care team in new ways.
Two things make this moment different. First, the tools have matured: sensors are clinically meaningful, and a growing number of digital products are studied in clinical trials and cleared by the FDA. Second, AI-enabled care — software that can understand language, recognize patterns, and personalize guidance — is making these tools dramatically more capable. The challenge is no longer finding options; it’s knowing which ones deserve your time, money, and data. That’s what the rest of this guide is for.
The main types of digital health tools.
Most tools fall into one of seven categories. Knowing which category you’re looking at tells you a lot about what to expect — including whether regulators are involved.
| Category | What it is | Everyday examples | FDA-regulated? |
|---|---|---|---|
| Wellness & fitness apps | Apps for general health habits — activity, nutrition, meditation, sleep hygiene. | Step tracking, guided meditation, habit building | Usually not |
| Condition-management apps | Apps built around a specific diagnosis, helping you track symptoms, medications, and progress. | Diabetes logs, migraine diaries, asthma trackers | Sometimes |
| Wearables & sensors | Devices worn on the body that measure real physiological signals. | Smartwatches, rings, ECG patches, continuous glucose monitors | Sometimes |
| Telehealth | Seeing licensed clinicians by video, phone, or secure messaging. | Virtual urgent care, online therapy, e-prescribing | Licensed care |
| Remote patient monitoring | Clinician-ordered home tracking, with your readings flowing back to your care team. | Home blood pressure, cardiac rhythm, post-surgery recovery | Devices often are |
| Digital therapeutics (DTx) | Software that is the treatment — evidence-based programs for a medical condition, sometimes by prescription. | Insomnia programs, substance-use support, chronic pain | Often |
| AI-powered tools | Software using artificial intelligence to interpret symptoms, images, or health data and personalize guidance. | Symptom checkers, AI health assistants, personalized coaching | Depends on use |
What AI-enabled care actually means.
Artificial intelligence in health care isn’t science fiction, and it isn’t a robot doctor. In practice, AI is software that finds patterns — in language, images, and streams of health data — and uses them to inform, personalize, and assist. Here’s where you’re most likely to encounter it today.
AI assistants and symptom checkers can help you make sense of medical information, prepare questions before a visit, and understand what your clinician told you afterward — in plain language, at any hour.
AI turns raw streams from wearables and sensors — sleep, heart rhythm, glucose, activity — into patterns you can act on, and can flag changes worth mentioning to your care team.
Your clinicians increasingly use AI too — to draft visit notes so they can face you instead of a screen, to help read scans and images, and to catch things worth a second look.
What digital health can help with.
Most people come to digital health with one of two starting points: a goal they want to reach, or a condition they’re managing. Both are good entry points — and both are how Digital.Health organizes its 5,000+ curated tools.
Sleep better, build fitness, support longevity, strengthen mental wellbeing, navigate women’s health — explore trusted tools organized by what you’re trying to achieve.
Browse by goal →From a new diagnosis to treatment, recovery, and caregiving — find tools matched to your condition and stage, curated with clinical oversight.
Browse by condition →How to tell what’s worth your trust.
There are hundreds of thousands of health apps — and quality varies enormously. Five signals separate the credible from the questionable.
Look for published, peer-reviewed studies — not just star ratings and testimonials. If a tool claims a health outcome, it should be able to point to data.
For tools that diagnose, treat, or monitor a condition, check for FDA clearance or authorization — and be wary of medical claims from tools that have neither.
HIPAA usually doesn’t cover consumer apps. Check: does it sell or share your data? Can you export and delete it? Is the privacy policy in plain language?
Credible tools name their clinical advisors, disclose how they make money, and are transparent about what the product can and can’t do.
Tools already used or recommended by clinicians and health systems have typically cleared a higher bar than tools marketed only through app-store ads.
Our short evaluation guide walks through evidence, FDA clearance, privacy, integration, and cost — before you commit time, money, or data.
Read the guide →What digital health costs — and who pays.
Many tools are free or low-cost. A large share of wellness and tracking apps use free tiers with optional subscriptions, typically in the range of a streaming service. Wearables are a one-time purchase plus, sometimes, a membership.
Insurance coverage is real but uneven. Telehealth visits are widely covered by commercial insurance, Medicare, and Medicaid. Some devices — continuous glucose monitors are the clearest example — are covered when medically indicated. Prescription digital therapeutics may be covered depending on your plan and diagnosis, and coverage is expanding year by year. Remote patient monitoring ordered by your clinician is generally billed through your insurance like other care.
Check three places before paying out of pocket: your health plan’s benefits (many now include digital health programs at no cost), your employer’s wellness benefits, and your clinician — who may be able to order a covered version of what you were about to buy.
Bring your care team into the loop.
Digital health works best alongside your clinicians, not instead of them. Your doctor, pharmacist, or nurse can tell you whether a tool fits your treatment plan, whether its data is worth acting on, and whether a covered alternative exists. And increasingly, clinicians are “prescribing” digital tools the way they prescribe medications.
If you’ve shortlisted a tool, our discussion guide gives you six questions that get a clinical perspective without taking over the appointment.
A short digital health glossary.
Eighteen terms you’ll see on product pages, in news coverage, and in this guide.
- Digital health
- The use of software, sensors, connectivity, and data — including apps, wearables, telehealth, and AI — to support health, wellness, and care delivery.
- Digital therapeutics (DTx)
- Software-based interventions that deliver evidence-based treatment for a medical condition, often studied in clinical trials.
- Prescription digital therapeutic (PDT)
- A digital therapeutic that requires a clinician’s prescription, typically FDA-authorized for a specific condition.
- Telehealth
- Receiving care from a clinician remotely by video, phone, or secure messaging.
- Remote patient monitoring (RPM)
- Clinician-ordered home tracking of measures like blood pressure or glucose, with data flowing back to your care team.
- Wearable
- A device worn on the body — watch, ring, patch, band — that measures signals such as heart rate, sleep, movement, or blood oxygen.
- Continuous glucose monitor (CGM)
- A skin-worn sensor that measures glucose continuously, used in diabetes care and metabolic wellness.
- Software as a Medical Device (SaMD)
- Software intended for a medical purpose — diagnosing, treating, or managing disease — regulated as a medical device in its own right.
- FDA clearance
- Authorization from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration to market a medical device, most commonly via the 510(k) pathway.
- Clinical validation
- Evidence from studies showing that a tool actually improves the health outcome it claims to improve, in real people.
- Artificial intelligence (AI)
- Computer systems that perform tasks associated with human intelligence, such as recognizing patterns in images, language, or health data.
- Machine learning
- A branch of AI in which systems learn patterns from data rather than following only hand-written rules.
- Large language model (LLM)
- An AI system trained on vast amounts of text that can understand and generate language — the technology behind modern AI assistants.
- Digital biomarker
- A health indicator collected through digital devices — like gait from a phone’s sensors or heart-rate variability from a watch.
- Interoperability
- The ability of different health systems, apps, and devices to exchange and use each other’s data.
- Patient portal
- A secure site or app from your health system where you can view records, message your care team, and manage appointments.
- HIPAA
- The U.S. law setting privacy and security rules for health information held by clinicians, health plans, and their partners — but not most consumer apps.
- mHealth
- Short for mobile health — health services and tools delivered through smartphones and tablets.
Digital health, frequently asked.
Is digital health the same as telehealth?
Are health apps regulated by the FDA?
Are health apps private and secure?
Does insurance cover digital health tools?
Do I need a prescription for digital health tools?
Can AI replace my doctor?
How do I know if a digital health tool actually works?
Where should I start?
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