During COVID-19, health provision and information resources have been increasingly provided via digital means (e.g. websites, apps) and this will become a standard practice beyond the pandemic. People with severe mental illness face profound health inequalities (e.g. a >20-year mortality gap). Digital exclusion puts this population at risk of heightened or compounded inequalities. This has been referred to as the ‘digital divide’. For any new digital means introduced in clinical practice to augment healthcare service provision, issues of accessibility, acceptability and usability should be addressed by researchers and developers early in the design phase, and prior to full implementation, to prevent digital exclusion.

在 COVID-19 期间，越来越多地通过数字方式（例如网站、应用程序）提供卫生服务和信息资源，这将成为大流行之后的标准做法。患有严重精神疾病的人面临着严重的健康不平等（例如 > 20 年的死亡率差距）。数字排斥使这一人群面临加剧或加剧不平等的风险。这被称为“数字鸿沟”。对于在临床实践中引入以增加医疗保健服务提供的任何新数字手段，研究人员和开发人员应在设计阶段早期和全面实施之前解决可访问性、可接受性和可用性问题，以防止数字排斥。