Enabling Innovation in Digital Hospital Ecosystems: A Literature Review

Healthcare information technology holds great potential for improving services in hospital environments. This transformation is fueled by the fact that current extraordinary situations, such as the COVID-19 pandemic, indicate that the realization of digital health innovation is essential to delivering most healthcare services for patients. To facilitate an environment that allows digital innovation and integration of internal and external stakeholders a movement toward a digital hospital ecosystem is needed. We conducted a structured literature review to identify the current state of knowledge about enabling mechanisms that facilitate the development of a digital hospital ecosystem. Therefore, we draw on the current literature on digital infrastructures and platform ecosystems. We identified the challenges hospitals face during their transformation and address them by deriving key mechanisms of the digital hospital ecosystem. Thus, this study contributes to research by presenting insights into the transformation toward a digital hospital ecosystem.