6 Transformation:
supporting a shift from analogue to digital health systems
A mong the most severe consequences of the Covid-19 pandemic has been the decline and even regression in global progress towards the Sustainable Development Goals. With poor countries disproportionately affected, the risk of growing inequities is exacerbated, compounded by shrinking fiscal space for health systems strengthening and decreasing global political appetite for health sector investments after multiple years of high pandemic-related expenditures. The onerous task, therefore, of doing more with less is shared universally, as the 2030 deadline looms. One obvious solution to the complex challenge of improving health system performance to reach the goal of universal health coverage is to use digital technologies to improve efficiency, coordinate care across verticals, strengthen programme performance through trustworthy, real-time data, and focus on the centrality of services that meet people where they are in their health journeys. Digitalisation has arguably been the most important recent shift in key sectors such as banking and education. And digital health – using appropriate technologies to improve the delivery of and access to curative and preventive health services – is rapidly maturing. GENESIS In 2019, as it shifted to focus on country priorities and reduce fragmentation, the World Health Organization established the Science Division and its Department of Digital Health and Innovation to meet the growing demands for evidence-based
guidance and technical support. The department developed a comprehensive Global Strategy on Digital Health (2020–2025) to outline key actions required to enable countries to strengthen health systems through evidence-based digital health approaches. The department and its mandate were built on over a decade of technical foundations in eHealth, telemedicine and mHealth – with clear guidance on core building blocks needed for an enabling ecosystem, a consensus taxonomy proposing a shared language for digital health and evidence-based guidelines on digital interventions for health system strengthening. Across six regions, WHO expertise in digital health is being bolstered, as are regional strategies, informed by extensive consultation. Post-pandemic, one highly sought area of technical support is in shepherding digital health system transformation. Globally, opportunities were missed By Alain Labrique, director, Digital Health and Innovation, World Health Organization Digital health can fundamentally shift how we think about primary health care and universal health coverage – but we must be willing to challenge the status quo that has been cemented in decades of practice and reimagine Health For All
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