Baker, T.B., Gustafson, D.H., & Shah, D. (2014). How can research keep up with eHealth? Ten strategies for increasing the timeliness and usefulness of eHealth research. Journal of Medical Internet Research, 16(2), e36. PMCID: PMC3961695.
In this article, the authors describe the difficulties of completing research with eHealth interventions and offer suggestions to improve the timeliness and usefulness of this research. Completing and disseminating research is traditionally a slow process, while technology change occurs rapidly. The authors explain that this leads to many effective eHealth interventions becoming outdated before being widely disseminated. Researchers must consider whether to disseminate a program without knowledge of the program’s efficacy, or validate the program and risk having it become obsolete.