Digital Therapeutics and Music: A Transdisciplinary Approach in Healthcare

Industries are increasingly embracing the transdisciplinary approach to addressing complex issues like planetary and human health. Transdisciplinary research, indeed, integrates disciplines to create new models and methods to face and solve real-world challenges. It is especially crucial in healthcare because a systemic perspective is required to manage complexity. Moreover, innovation literature highlights that the development of emerging technologies is inherently transdisciplinary. In healthcare, digital health solutions are progressively adopted in care delivery, particularly for non-pharmaceutical treatments, which are less invasive and expensive than traditional ones. Such tools often emerge from integrating disciplines, mainly medicine, psychology, and the arts, supporting a patient’s life’s emotional and behavioural dimensions, while reducing healthcare costs. Among these, “Digital Therapeutics” (DTx) are emerging as a disruptive innovation improving care quality. DTx are evidence-based, software-driven medical interventions that provide cognitive-behavioural and emotional therapies. Despite their practical and theoretical relevance, innovation and knowledge management literature still lacks a comprehensive understanding of how DTx foster a transdisciplinary approach to non-pharmaceutical interventions. This research fills the gap by qualitatively analysing two DTx delivering music-therapeutic interventions, a widely diffused and effective category of non-pharmaceutical treatment. Specifically, we investigate the DTX’s role in enhancing transdisciplinarity in healthcare. Findings reveal three underlying mechanisms through which this happens, contributing to the current management literature and the emerging DTx research stream. Finally, this research provides practical insights for healthcare professionals, suggesting new transdisciplinary care pathways’ management.