On the sidelines of the World Summit on the Information Society +20 High-Level Event 27–31 May 2024, the Global Initiative on Digital Health convened global stakeholders governing, supporting and implementing digital health transformation for a multistakeholder dialogue in Geneva, Switzerland, from 28–29 May 2024.
WHO Director-General Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus provided opening remarks at the World Summit on the Information Society +20 High-Level Event, alongside other global leaders, setting the stage for this significant event.
This first global convening of the Global Initiative on Digital Health was co-hosted by the Global Initiative on Digital Health, the Brazil G20 Presidency under the framework of the World Summit of the Information Society (WSIS) and Action line C7: E-Health. The event commenced with remarks from:
- Dr Alain Labrique, Director, Department of Digital Health and Innovation, World Health Organization
- Ms Ana Estela Haddad, Secretary of Information and Digital Health of the Brazilian Ministry of Health
- Ms Rachel Toku-Appiah, Director, Policy, Advocacy and Communication, Africa, Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation
- Ms Monique Vledder, Head for Health, Nutrition and Population, World Bank
- Mr Tomas Lamanauskas, Deputy Secretary-General, the International Telecommunications Union.
Participants included representatives from over 60 countries and 150 organizations across ministries of health and Information Communication and Technology, government agencies, bilateral agencies, philanthropic organizations, academia, civil society, private sector and technologists. Through both in-person and online participation – enabled with support from the International Telecommunication Union – participants shared their experiences and lessons learned with standards-based and country-led development of digital health architecture.
The discussions focused on several critical topics, including:
- the role of digitalization in health financing and the need for digital public infrastructure in the health sector;
- policy legislation and regulations that enable digital health adoption, data sharing and interoperability standards;
- the impact of internet connectivity and bandwidth, level of digital literacy and data governance on national digital governance;
- what constitutes a good digital health investment and how to track this;
- the opportunities for government-to-government collaboration to strengthen national governance of digital health transformation;
- the opportunity for public private partnerships for resilient digital health; and
- how to measure progress on the Global Strategy on Digital Health.
Key milestones included kick-off of the development of the WHO-ITU Digital Public Infrastructure Reference Architecture for Digital Health Transformation and the launch of data collection for the Global Digital Health Monitor and Complementary Report focused on the WHO Africa Region through a collaboration between WHO and Africa CDC.
The second GIDH global convening will be held at the end of May in Geneva, Switzerland. Visit the GIDH webpage for updates and information on how to get involved.