OBJECTIVES: A myriad of digital technologies within health systems has emerged over the years and the current pandemic has further catalyzed their development. As a result, various definitions of digital health are often used in different circles. The objective of this work was to provide an overview of definitions available on the internet and their context to complement the traditional (“white”) literature search.

METHODS: We adapted methodological guidelines from the Cochrane Handbook and management sciences to mirror the search in bibliographic databases. A comprehensive Google search was performed to retrieve uniform resource locators (URL’s) of webpages containing terms for digital health within 4 words of synonyms for the word “definition”. The DataScraper extension of the Google Chrome browser was used to collect all URL’s. A preliminary analysis of the definitions for “digital health” was performed. Webpages were eligible if they contained an original or adopted English-language definition of digital health or contained a direct link to a definition or a document containing a definition. All document types were eligible.

RESULTS: Of the 38 search expressions built from terms related to digital health, 6 yielded no results and 32 yielded a total of 1928 URL’s. Deduplication resulted in 1840 unique URL’s. The expression containing “digital health” yielded 103 webpages, out of which 37 (35.9%) contained a definition of digital health, and 17 (16.5%) contained definitions of terms related to digital health. The retrieved webpages contained 22 (21.4%) original definitions and 15 (14.6%) adopted or adapted definitions.

CONCLUSIONS: The digital era raises both challenges and opportunities in conducting a grey literature search. We found that an augmented Google-based search can identify valuable references that traditional literature searches cannot detect. Term definitions (and their context) found in the grey versus bibliographic databases need to be compared to ensure their alignment with ISPOR’s mission.