How countries are prioritizing digital health: Findings from six countries
By: Tara Newton, Senior Communications Officer, PATH
Mobile phones are used as a digital health tool in New Delhi State, India. Photo: PATH/Prince Prasun.
Digital health interventions can strengthen health systems, increase health system efficiency, and improve the quality of and access to health services. However, with so many digital tools available to countries, it can be difficult to know what to prioritize amongst other public health demands and limited budgets.
Data collection for the Country Priorities for Digital Health study occurred in six countries representing a variety of geographic regions, digital health maturity levels, and experiences partnering with Digital Square.
Digital Square’s mission is to connect health leaders with the resources and information necessary for digital transformation. To understand if our projects are meeting country needs—and to inform future partnerships with countries on their digital transformation journeys—we conducted a study to interview digital health leaders across six countries representing diversity in both geography and digital health maturity: Burkina Faso, the Dominican Republic, India, Indonesia, Kenya, and Nigeria.
“Although our team had assumptions on what countries may need for digital transformation such as technical assistance, global goods, and budgeting tools, we felt it was important to hear directly from countries to validate our approach and uncover new priorities we may not yet be addressing,” said Emily Grapa, Monitoring, Evaluation, and Learning Lead, PATH.
Country stakeholders are at the center of our approach. Digital Square recognizes that the sustainability and scale of digital health and data interventions rely on countries setting the foundation to align donors, implementing partners, and others on country priorities.
The following findings from the study and our recommendations are a snapshot of the recently released full report and can be used to inform other global and national stakeholders in the digital health community to advance their digital health agendas.
A snapshot of findings and recommendations
In each country, we conducted a desk review of documents such as national eHealth policies and information communication technology (ICT) strategic frameworks and held interviews with key stakeholders including country leaders from ministries of health, ICT, national digital health agencies, or other digital health government decision-makers. The report is organized by five domains: digital health decision-making and priorities, funding for digital health, standards and interoperability, digital health technologies, and privacy and security. Findings from two of these domains are included below.
Funding for digital health
We found that countries use a mix of funding sources for digital health. Sustainable investments are challenging due to a lack of coordination, prioritization of direct care, and limited evidence on the costs and outcomes of digital health interventions. Additionally, countries had limited awareness of costing tools specifically for digital health. To address this, we recommend aligning investments with countries’ digital health strategies, promoting awareness of digital health budgeting tools such as Digital Square’s Total Cost of Ownership Tool, and continuing to build evidence on digital health interventions to increase understanding among key stakeholders and advocate for increased investment in digital health.
Privacy and security
As more countries adopt digital health interventions, the privacy and security of data is critical to ensure trust in public health systems. Country leaders universally recognized the importance of data privacy and security but were aware of gaps in developing and implementing necessary policies. Country leaders suggested ways to address these gaps, including sharing best practices and experiences in other countries of similar contexts, sharing information related to cybersecurity standards and tools, and utilizing technical assistance to institute new policies. To guarantee that sensitive information is collected, stored, and used in a secure and responsible manner, countries need to prioritize strengthening capacity in the understanding of basic health data security and risks and must support the development of national security policies with the financial and operational means to implement the policies.
Digital Square and CDC Technical Assistance Platform teams are supporting countries to learn more about privacy and security through workshops, trainings, and webinars such as the Fundamentals of cybersecurity and data privacy and Data privacy and security for digital health decision-makers.
Review the full report
Download the full report.
These are snapshots of just two domains. We encourage reviewing the full report to uncover all the findings and recommendations for each of the five domains. These findings are intended to be applicable across a broad range of country contexts and to help governments, program implementers, policymakers, and funders choose the highest-impact digital health approaches that will address existing gaps and barriers.
At Digital Square and PATH, we continue to adaptively manage our approach based on feedback from countries. Looking ahead, we will ensure our digital health activities and our support align with these findings and recommendations.