Transforming Clinical Care through Innovation in Digital Technology
The Program in Digital Medicine (PDM) at UMass Chan Medical School builds the bridge between the fragmented, reactive care of today and the proactive, home-enabled, AI-supported care of tomorrow.
THE PROBLEM WE WORK ON
The patients who need care most are often the ones least able to reach it.
Most care still requires travel to a building. Without continuous monitoring, disease is caught too late, and we respond to crises instead of preventing them. The technology to change this already exists. Our job is to put it to work where it matters most, with a focus on patient outcomes, provider satisfaction, and reducing disparity.
There is also a structural problem. Research and care delivery live in separate institutions with separate mandates, and transforming how care gets delivered belongs fully to neither. PDM occupies that gap: a team that combines research rigor, operational know-how, and a working understanding of health system regulation and governance to move innovation from idea to standard of care.
A SYSTEMATIC APPROACH TO CARE TRANSFORMATION
Innovation in medicine is filled with painful missteps, stepping on a pile of building blocks.
New technologies arrive faster than health systems can safely absorb them, and each new pilot too often arrives as a single-purpose kit: its own consent process, its own data pipeline, its own evaluation plan, built from scratch and discarded when the pilot ends.
PDM builds with interlocking bricks instead. Every study, pipeline, regulatory pathway, and partnership we complete is designed as a reusable component that connects to the next one. A core focus of PDM is to transform care delivery by developing infrastructure that supports rapid implementation and evaluation of innovations in health technology, so that clinics and the health system can adopt what works, retire what does not, and minimize painful missteps along the way.
PROGRAM IN DIGITAL MEDICINE IS SUPPORTED BY THREE PILLAR OF FOCUS
We lead with service mindset, develop new models through research, and focus on sustainability through workforce development.
Service
We support hospitals and clinics in implementing innovation. PDM has delivered more than 20 projects supporting clinical operations at UMass Memorial Health and has helped bring more than 5 new clinical programs into practice that did not exist five years ago.
Research
We develop proof of concept for new sensors, AI models, and care programs, and we evaluate whether they actually improve care. More than 20 of our published articles directly inform clinical practice.
Education
We train the next generation of clinicians and innovators, from medical students and residents to fellows and postdoctoral scientists, including one of the first NIH-funded postdoctoral training programs in digital medicine (CODER).
STATISTICS
Five years by the numbers
5+
clinical programs brought to practice
20+
publications that directly impact clinical care
4,000+
patients on remote patient monitoring at UMass Memorial
20+
projects supporting clinical operations
~100K
endoscopic procedures recorded for AI development
2.7M+
patient records across PDM-built research cohorts
16+
digital studies with survey and wearable data
20+
trainees: fellows, predoctoral and residency scholars, postdocs, and T32/TL1 awardees
WAYS TO GET INVOLVED
Join our team
If you are a UMass Chan faculty or trainee interested in Digital Medicine and Care Transformation, explore ways to get involved!
Partner with us
If you are a healthcare organization or a care provider, interested in partnering with us on the digital medicine innovation journey!
Work with us
We welcome and actively seek partnership with like-minded industry partners dedicated to accelerating transformation in clinical care!
FOLLOW US
@umasschan_pdm
For research updates, program highlights, and digital medicine news.
SCAN TO FOLLOW