Table 1.

Inclusion and exclusion criteria

	Inclusion criteria	Exclusion criteria
Types of participants	Studies on human populations At minimum 50% of studies included in the review have objectives focused on underserved populations, equity, vulnerable populations defined as: People of older age (age 50+) People identifying as nonheterosexual or noncis gender Racial or cultural minority groups Immigration status (recent immigrants to country of focus, refugees) People with low income, low socioeconomic status, or poverty People living in rural or remote areas People who are homeless	Animal studies/models, nonhumans or vertebrae studies Reviews with focus on a population group outside of those in our inclusion criteria Reviews with less than 50% of included studies focused on population groups within our inclusion criteria Reviews focused on general populations or clinically at-risk population groups (eg, individuals with risk factors specific to certain diseases not in our listed underserved population groups)
Concept	At minimum 50% of studies included in the review have objectives focused on health care focused technologies used to enable bi-directional patient-provider communication remotely (ie, not in-person) Reviews focused on virtual care interventions as defined in Section 2.4.1 in the World Health Organization’s Classification of Digital Health Interventions (consultations between remote client and healthcare providers)42 Telephone communication Video communication Text messaging (asynchronous) Email messaging (asynchronous) Portals, apps, and other applications for bi-directional patient-provider communication Remote monitoring tools with feedback loop and bi-directional patient-provider communication through one of the above modalities Reviews focused on virtual care if it is being provided adjunctively with in-person care. Virtual care does not necessarily need to replace in-person care, but can be a supplement to in-person care process Reviews focused on individual, neighborhood, organizational, policy, and/or systemic level barriers or strategies to increase adoption, access, and utilization	• Reviews of technological interventions that do not explicitly focus on replacing in-person care or bi-directional provider-patient communication (eg, patient portals that only focus on providing patients with access to their health information, functionality, provider-provider communication tools, education, prevention, health promotion apps without 2-way communication, etc.)
Context	Reviews focused on health system settings in high-income countries (as defined by The World Bank43) Reviews focused on health system settings with high- and middle-income countries together	Reviews focused on middle income and/or low-income countries
Types of evidence	Any of the following methods-driven literature reviews: Systematic reviews Scoping reviews Meta-analyses Meta-syntheses Realist reviews Critical interpretive syntheses English-language studies only	Any reviews not listed in the inclusion-criteria list or nonmethods-based reviews or knowledge syntheses Primary research studies using qualitative and quantitative methods (eg, randomized controlled trials and case studies) Opinion papers, commentaries, editorial reviews, and letters to the editor Study protocols, theses, dissertations, and conference abstracts