Digital health in the spotlight at the World Health Summit
By: Alena Owen, Digital Square Program Officer, Strategy and Advocacy
Panelists from left to right: Derrick Muneene, Joseline Carías Galeano, Maganizo Monawe, Omary Ubuguyu, Taonga Chilalika. Photo: PATH/Hallie Goertz.
Digital health transformation is essential to achieving health equity. It was a major theme at the October 2022 World Health Summit, which brought together more than 60,000 global health practitioners virtually and in person in Berlin, Germany, to accelerate global health development.
PATH’s Center of Digital and Data Excellence hosted two events attended by government representatives, funders, implementing partners, and private-sector partners. The events highlighted reflections and learnings from Digital Square and the Data Use Acceleration and Learning (DUAL) initiative. Here are three key takeaways.
#1: Digital global goods thrive within an ecosystem of choice.
A proliferation in the availability of reputable, flexible, interoperable technologies has created an ecosystem of choice. In such an ecosystem, countries can select tools or suites of tools that best meet their digital transformation needs at all levels of the health system.
For example, Lav Agarwal, Additional Secretary for India’s Ministry of Health and Family Welfare, shared how India’s blueprint for a digital response to COVID-19 laid the foundation for a thriving local ecosystem of digital solutions.
Over the last two years, India designed and implemented a national architecture approach to digital health intended to break down silos within the digital space and integrate digital tools into health care service delivery mechanisms. Mr. Agarwal described how the new ecosystem allowed for continuity of care across services, better quality of health care delivery, clinical decision support, telemedicine programs and customized treatment plans, efficient distribution of vaccines, and tele-education during the COVID-19 pandemic.
#2: Countries can benefit from a holistic approach to data use.
Data Use Acceleration and Learning (DUAL) model
A strong data use ecosystem is important at any stage of a country’s digital transformation journey. This was further underscored by the DUAL initiative, a partnership between PATH and Cooper/Smith that aims to share what works to achieve digital transformation based on the real-world experiences of countries digitalizing their health systems. Synthesizing learnings from five African countries, the DUAL model identifies ten critical elements of a comprehensive approach to transforming a country’s health data system and digital tools to advance data use.
Dr. Garrett Mehl, Head of the Digital Health Technology Unit within the World Health Organization (WHO), shared that the holistic approach to digital health demonstrated in India is increasingly central to the goals of WHO. He emphasized how “we can get further if we adopt an ecosystem approach to digital global goods.”
As countries continue to digitalize their health systems, policymakers, country governments, implementers, and funders can employ the DUAL model to identify actions to support them in their digital transformation journeys.
#3: Interoperability—of systems and people—is key to unlocking digital health transformation.
The sector-wide embrace of interoperability standards over the past decade has coincided with the entrance of major technology platforms into the health arena. This has led to an increased need for partnerships between the private and public sectors to ensure ongoing alignment across digital health investments, policies, and services.
Olivia Vélez, PhD, Chief Digital Health Officer at IntraHealth International, noted: “People interoperability is just as important as systems interoperability—how do we support people from different industries, organizations, and ministries in better working together?”
“People interoperability is just as important as systems interoperability.”
As digital health continues to be in the spotlight on the global stage, PATH is committed to facilitating future conversations to accelerate the use of digital and data to advance health equity. Centering people is a great first principle to ensure that this acceleration improves lives—and mitigates the risk of digital innovations widening inequities in our world.