News Excerpt:

The World Health Organization (WHO) has launched the Global Initiative on Digital Health (GIDH), a platform for sharing knowledge and digital products among countries.

More details on news:

• GIDH is one of the key initiatives of India’s G-20 Presidency, and was announced in August 2023 in Gandhinagar Gujarat.
• The platform was launched virtually in February 2024.
• It will consolidate the evidence and “amplify recent and past gains in global digital health” while strengthening mutual accountability to enhance the impact of future investments.

About the Global Initiative on Digital Health:

• The  network is managed by the WHO.
• It is launched with the objective of enhancing and aligning resources to support digital health transformation led by individual countries, achieved through improved collaboration and the exchange of knowledge.
• It acts as a vehicle to facilitate the implementation of the Global Strategy on Digital Health 2020-2025.
• Membership: Membership is open to all institutions engaged in digital health.
• According to the WHO director general, the GIDH is an integrative step that fosters equity in healthcare by converging efforts and best practices. 
• It will amplify our efforts with the incorporation of tools such as AI while giving due importance to ethics, policy, and governance.

The Initiative aims to achieve the following objectives through collaborative efforts:

• Assess and prioritize country needs for sustainable digital health transformation.
• Increase the alignment of country-level digital health resources and unfunded priorities.
• Support the accelerated achievement of the strategic objectives of the Global Strategy on Digital Health 2020-2025.
• Build capacity and converge efforts to encourage local development, maintenance, and adaptation of digital health technologies to continuously changing needs.

Future significance of Initiative

• The platform will help in democratising digital health technologies, especially for countries of the Global South.
• The GIDH will promote equitable access to digital health by addressing challenges such as duplication of efforts and “products-focused” digital health transformation.
• The initiative will be a network of networks with four main components:
  • Country Needs Tracker
  • Country Resource Portal (a map of resources available in a country)
  • Transformation Toolbox that will share quality-assured digital tools
  • Convening and Knowledge Exchange

• GIDH will support countries in three ways:
  • By listening to their needs.
  • By aligning resources to avoid fragmentation and overlap, and
  • By providing quality assured products. 
• The GIDH will ensure inclusivity, integration, and alignment of our goals by not leaving anyone behind.
  • Digital health is a proven accelerator to advance health outcomes and achieve Universal Health Coverage (UHC) and health-related Sustainable Development Goals.

Conclusion:

The Global Initiative on Digital Health is a collective effort aimed at using technology to improve health outcomes worldwide. Through encouraging collaboration and the exchange of knowledge, the initiative aims to empower individual countries to take the lead in a transformation in digital health.