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Digital Square releases new version of Global Goods Guidebook to boost the use of adaptable digital health tools

 

Digital Square is excited to launch its third edition of the Global Goods Guidebook, showcasing 35 mature global goods that are readily adaptable and scalable and used in more than 130 countries around the world.

“This latest edition of the Guidebook doubles down on ensuring that it’s a resource filled with practical and actionable information for those considering digital health tools in varied roles throughout the diverse sector of global digital health,” said Carl Fourie, Digital Square’s Deputy Director of Global Goods. “For those who are less familiar with the Guidebook or global goods, we’ve worked to make the background information more straightforward and accessible. And for everyone, there’s a wealth of new information that should come in handy for so many people who find themselves involved in digital health decision-making.”

Global goods are digital health tools that are adaptable to different countries and contexts to help address key health system challenges. A global good can be a software, service, or content. The advancement of global goods is crucial for saving lives and improving health around the world because these free and open source digital health tools can be used across different countries and health program verticals, cutting down on fragmentation and duplication to accelerate scale and health impact.

Updated and published annually, the Guidebook provides much-needed information on the identification, selection, procurement, and implementation of global goods that have successfully been used to address various health system challenges, including COVID-19 response. The Guidebook highlights their application, geographic deployment, impact, and ability to communicate and share data with other digital health tools, and is coupled with key links to resources for strategies, priorities, and best practices in digital health deployment and sustainability.

What’s new in version 3.0?

By incorporating input from the global digital health community, Digital Square continues to improve the utility and usability of the Guidebook. Look out for these new additions:

  • A section on how a digital health tool becomes a Digital Square-approved global good.

  • Global goods entries: An update on previously featured global goods describing applications in the different health verticals, geographic deployment, and interoperability. New in this version – areas on impact and COVID-19 response.

  • A new global good feature: Meet Everwell, a Digital Square global good, which emerged successfully from Digital Square’s recent funding cycle, Notice F.

  • World Health Organization (WHO) SMART Guidelines: A description of the WHO guidelines to systematize and accelerate the consistent application of recommended, life-saving interventions in the digital age.

  • Digital public goods: Learn how global goods are similar to and different from digital public goods for health. Find an extract from the DPG registry on digital public goods, some of which are also global goods.

Digital Square’s Global Goods Guidebook is endorsed by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, Digital Impact Alliance (DIAL), German Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development (BMZ), German Agency for International Cooperation (GIZ), United States Agency for International Development (USAID), and United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF). Also, this year, the Digital Public Goods Alliance (DPGA) joins as a new endorser. This comes on the back of PATH's new membership to the DPGA, signaling a concerted effort to elevate and promote the use of digital health tools for improved health services for all.

Together with its partners, Digital Square is committed to developing resources like the Global Goods Guidebook to improve how the global community designs, uses, and pays for digital health tools and approaches. For more information about the Global Goods Guidebook or Digital Square’s portfolio of global goods, please be in touch with Digital Square’s Deputy Director of Global Goods, Carl Fourie: cfourie@path.org.

About Digital Square: Digital Square is a PATH-led initiative funded by the United States Agency for International Development, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, and a consortium of other partners. Since its inception in 2016, Digital Square has raised more than $100M from 15 investors to catalyze a range of digital health investments—working with ministries of health around the world to align adaptable, interoperable digital technologies with local health needs.

Digital Square’s coalitions, resources, and its portfolio of mature digital public goods for health (global goods) support large-scale, high-quality, sustainable implementations of digital health interventions. The Digital Square team brings together a robust and diverse skillset to play a leading role in digital health transformation efforts designed to help close the health equity gap around the world.