Organisations collaborate on increasing accessibility to digital healthcare
With the United Nations’ goal of achieving Universal Health Coverage by 2030 less than 10 years away, the importance of digital technologies in improving health outcomes has moved up the political agenda.
More than 70 governments, public, private sector and youth organisations, as well as representatives from academia across 40 countries, came together for the first ever Digital Health Week, which saw 38 commitments made for transforming digital health.
The week of action was organised by Transform Health, a global coalition committed to achieving universal health coverage (UHC) through the use of digital technologies.
Universal health coverage
With the United Nations goal of achieving universal health coverage by 2030 less than 10 years away, the role that digital technologies can play in increasing the accessibility of quality healthcare has moved up the political agenda.
Meanwhile, the Covid-19 pandemic has demonstrated how digital health systems – including open and transparent data sharing, telemedicine appointments and the use of other digital tools – can improve health outcomes.
Transform Health said it is more urgent than ever to learn from this and leverage such tools to mitigate the impact of future health crises.
The pandemic has demonstrated how digital health systems – including open and transparent data sharing and telemedicine appointments – can improve health outcomes
During the week, events ranged from Interoperability Standards in Bhutan to how countries can implement the World Health Organisation’s Global Digital Health Strategy, how to govern health data ethically and the power imbalances in the collection and the use of health data.
Organisations also ran campaigns, published articles and podcasts, shared best practises, and discussed how to collaborate across sectors to ensure that the digital transformation of health leaves no one behind.
As a way to demonstrate commitment to the goal of achieving UHC, and to maintain the momentum of the week, organisations made new commitments to advance digital health over the next five years. These commitments include advocacy, capacity building, programmes, research and financing pledges that will contribute to the digital transformation of health systems in their regions.
Commitments made over the course of the week included:
- Fondation Botnar, which aims to harness emerging solutions to improve the wellbeing of children, committed to allocating CHF25m (Swiss francs) to a new portfolio of work over the next three years, including programmes, policy, advocacy and partnerships, at the intersection of human rights and digital health
- Apollo Remote HealthCare committed to ensuring its intervention programmes reach 36 million people in resource-constrained communities in India by 2025
- Living Goods will work with its government partners to equip 32,000 community health workers with digital tools to impact 18 million people in five countries in Sub-Saharan Africa by 2026
- technology company Philips will expand access to care for 400 million people in underserved communities globally by driving digital and technological innovation.
Transform Health was formed in 2018 by a group of organisations who saw the need for a concerted, long-term effort to harness the transformative benefits of digital technology and data to achieve the Sustainable Development Goal target of Universal Health Coverage by 2030. Its seven founding partners are Fondation Botnar, Joep Lange Institute, Medicus Mundi Switzerland, Path, PharmAccess Foundation, PMNCH and Women Deliver.
