JMIR Publications’ Journal of Medical Internet Research invites submissions on Digital Health Strategic Planning

(Toronto, October 30, 2025) JMIR Publications invites submissions to a new section titled "Digital Health Strategic Planning" in its open access journal Journal of Medical Internet Research. The premier, peer-reviewed journal is indexed in in all major literature indices including National Library of Medicine(NLM)/MEDLINE, PubMed, PMC, Scopus, DOAJ, Clarivate (which includes Web of Science (WoS)/ESCI/SCIE), and others.

The integration of digital health into global policy, accelerated by the COVID-19 pandemic and rapid technological progress, has highlighted a critical need for systematic digital health strategic planning. Despite significant investments by health care organizations, government agencies, and technology companies, the strategic planning guiding these initiatives remains ill-defined and inconsistently implemented. Current strategic planning often relies on intuition, vendor recommendations, or technology-driven decisions rather than comprehensive strategic frameworks. This indicates a significant underutilization of the potential of strategic planning in digital health transformation.

This call for papers aims to shift the paradigm. Traditionally, digital health implementation has been driven by technology-first approaches or ad-hoc decision-making processes. These often lack the systematic strategic planning methodologies that have been established in business management and policy development for decades. Despite the demonstrated effectiveness of strategic planning applications in diverse sectors such as corporate technology implementation, organizational change management, and policy implementation, their systematic utilization in digital health planning remains limited. Strategic planning, historically “the art of generals” (from the Greek στρατηγία), requires both artistic vision and methodological rigor—qualities often absent in current digital health planning approaches.

In this new section, the Journal of Medical Internet Research seeks to popularize evidence-based strategic planning methodologies in digital health and provide comprehensive guidelines for their application, empowering a broader range of stakeholders to contribute to informed, methodically sound strategic approaches to digital health transformation.

To cultivate a new research community in this vital area, this call for papers is dedicated to strategic planning in the digital health context. The journal, with this initiative, aims to gather contributions that will deepen the interdisciplinary dialog between strategic planning and digital health communities, promote evidence-based decision-making, and help shape successful digital health transformation initiatives. 

Papers submitted for consideration may explore, and are not limited to, the following topics:

• Strategic planning frameworks and methodologies specifically adapted for digital health contexts, including the evolution from periodic to continuous planning approaches.

• Case studies of successful digital health strategic planning implementations across different organizational settings, comparing traditional vs. agile strategic planning methodologies.

• Comparative analysis of digital health strategic planning approaches in different healthcare systems or countries.

• The role of stakeholder engagement in digital health strategic planning processes.

• Methods for prioritizing digital health investments and technology adoption decisions.

• Strategic planning approaches for large-scale digital health transformation initiatives.

• Portfolio management methodologies for digital health programs and projects as a continuous strategic planning approach.

• Integration of strategic planning methodologies with digital health governance structures.

• Application of strategic planning methods to prepare healthcare organizations for emerging digital technologies.

• Using strategic planning frameworks to develop pathways toward sustainable digital health implementation.

• How strategic planning methods can help organizations navigate digital health policy and regulatory environments.

• Strategic planning approaches for digital health equity and accessibility initiatives.

• The role of strategic planning in managing digital health implementation risks and change management.

• Strategic planning methodologies for multi-stakeholder digital health collaborations and partnerships.

• Application of strategic planning frameworks to evaluate and measure digital health initiative success.

• Strategic planning approaches for resource allocation and financial planning in digital health initiatives.

• Agile strategic planning methodologies for rapidly evolving digital health environments.

 

To learn more please visit the website. 

 

About JMIR Publications

JMIR Publications is a leading open access publisher of digital health research and a champion of open science. With a focus on author advocacy and research amplification, JMIR Publications partners with researchers to advance their careers and maximize the impact of their work. As a technology organization with publishing at its core, we provide innovative tools and resources that go beyond traditional publishing, supporting researchers at every step of the dissemination process. Our portfolio features a range of peer-reviewed journals, including the renowned Journal of Medical Internet Research.

Media Contact:

Dennis O’Brien, Vice President, Communications & Partnerships

JMIR Publications

communications@jmir.org

+1 416-583-2040

The content of this communication is licensed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work, published by JMIR Publications, is properly cited.

 

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