World Health Organisation unveils new Global Digital Health Initiative to transform healthcare
In a significant step towards advancing global health care through technology, the World Health Organisation (WHO) unveiled its Global Initiative on Digital Health (GIDH) on Tuesday (20th of February, 2024). This initiative represents a coordinated network managed by WHO, aimed at bolstering and harmonising resources to support the digital transformation of health care led by countries around the world.
The GIDH is set to fortify collaboration and knowledge sharing, serving as a critical mechanism for the execution of the Global Strategy on Digital Health for the period 2020-2025. Its objectives include evaluating and addressing the digital health requirements of member countries to ensure sustainable transformation, enhancing capacity building, and unifying efforts to promote the local development, maintenance, and adaptation of digital health technologies in response to evolving health care needs.
An executive summary released alongside the GIDH’s launch highlighted that over 120 WHO Member States have formulated national digital health policies or strategies. However, many of these strategies lack detailed financial planning or comprehensive architectural designs. Moreover, the rapid progression of digital health transformation faces hurdles such as fragmented resource allocation, inconsistent definitions, and varying quality levels of digital solutions.
A pivotal concern among countries is the transition from product-centric digital health initiatives to the establishment of a national digital health infrastructure. This transition necessitates reliable, high-quality technical support to meet national digital health priorities effectively, with governments leading the charge.
To combat challenges like effort duplication and product-focused digital health transformation, the GIDH is structured around four foundational pillars. These pillars are designed to ensure that digital health investments align with national priorities through a country needs tracker, identify both conventional and innovative funding opportunities via a country resource portal, enhance country capacity and autonomy through a transformation toolbox, and promote robust collaboration and knowledge sharing across digital health networks globally, regionally, and nationally.
A particular focus of the GIDH is on data sharing and enhancing patient access to digital health tools. Mathias Cormann, secretary general of the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development, emphasised during a webinar that the initiative could significantly contribute to improving data sharing and patient access to digital tools. He pointed out the underutilisation of health-related data, which, despite constituting 30% of the world’s data, sees less than 1% used in healthcare decision-making. Cormann also highlighted the introduction of public application programming interfaces (APIs) for health data by at least 14 OECD countries, which could serve as valuable models for similar efforts worldwide.
Improving patient access remains a priority, with 23 out of 27 OECD countries reporting that patients can view their electronic health records. Nevertheless, the accessibility of this data to all patients and health providers is limited, and functionality issues persist.
Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, WHO’s director-general, warmly welcomed the GIDH, underscoring WHO’s longstanding commitment to leveraging technology to enhance health. He mentioned the establishment of the Department of Digital Health and Innovation at WHO and the creation of a global digital health certification network. This network facilitates the bilateral verification of digital records and health certificates across over 75 countries. Additionally, WHO recently introduced guidelines for member states on regulatory considerations for artificial intelligence, marking another stride towards assisting countries in achieving their digital transformation ambitions.
Dr Tedros highlighted the challenges of fragmentation and overlap in the digital health sphere, exacerbated by the proliferation of new digital tools lacking common standards. He advocated for a digital health future characterised by interoperable systems, reducing the workload on health care providers and improving service delivery to the public. The emphasis is on governments having access to quality-assured digital tools and resources necessary for the local production and ownership of digital health solutions.
This initiative builds on WHO’s recent policy brief on digital health data, including new guidelines on “person-centred” HIV strategic information, reinforcing its dedication to shaping a future where digital health tools are integral to global health care enhancement.
