Digitale Gesundheit

"The Global Digital Compact was adopted last week by governments at the Summit of the Future, as part of the Pact for the Future. Transform Health welcomes the strong focus on data governance in the compact, which sets out a commitment from governments to develop a data governance framework. However, that commitment is only as powerful as its implementation. Governments must now work collectively and inclusively (with a wide range of stakeholders, including civil society and youth) to turn that commitment into action."

• Transform Health
• UN - Global Digital Compact

"Transform Health and partners are convening a period of public consultation on a draft Model Law on Health Data Governance, which articulates core elements, guidance and model legal text, informed by equity and rights-based principles, among other international, regional and national commitments and best practice. The purpose of this consultation period is to gather stakeholder and expert feedback on the draft, including its content and how it is structured. Through this process, we aim to strengthen and validate the draft, while building consensus, alignment and broad support around the core elements."

• Transform Health
• Model Law on Health Data Governance
• Please complete this survey by 30th April to share your feedback on the draft model law.

"The Global Initiative on Digital Health (GIDH) is a WHO managed network of stakeholders organized to facilitate the implementation of the Global Strategy on Digital Health 2020-2025 and other WHO norms and standards for Digital Health System Transformation. The Initiative will serve as a platform to enable a wide global ecosystem to work collectively to promote country capacity and strengthen international cooperation in digital health. GIDH will prioritize the following core areas of work: assessing and prioritizing Member States’ needs, evaluating the availability and reporting of country-level digital health resources and identifying under-funded priorities, supporting technically and financially the accelerated achievement of the strategic objectives defined in the Global Strategy on Digital Health 2020-2025, building capacity and converging efforts to encourage developing, maintaining and adapting digital health technologies to continuously changing needs."

• World Health Organization
• Video

"Transform Health was at #UNGA78! We organised a high-level discussion on ‘Optimising digital health investment to deliver Universal Health Coverage’ and participated in the high-level meetings on Pandemic, Prevention, Preparedness and Response and on Universal Health Coverage , alongside numerous other side events and meetings. Some highlights and reflections below! (...) As we approached this year’s UN General Assembly, we had a clear ask for governments and other stakeholders to make bold commitments to prioritise #DigitalHealth to deliver UHC by 2030. As we got closer to the UHC high-level meeting (UHCHLM), and the final draft of the Political Declaration was released, we responded with a joint-statement co-authored by 22 global leaders, calling for a more ambitious commitment that fully recognises the transformative potential of digital health as a key driver to accelerate progress towards UHC."

• Transform Health

"In October 2021, the Lancet and Financial Times Commission on Governing Health Futures 2030: Growing up in a digital world published a report calling for stronger digital and data governance to improve young people’s health and well-being and support achievement of the Sustainable Development Goals. To continue the Commission’s work, and accelerate implementation of its recommendations, a global consortium called the Digital Transformations for Health Lab (DTH-Lab) has been established by many of the Commission’s original members and partners. (...) The DTH-Lab will continue the Commission’s portfolio of research and analysis whilst at the same time establishing partnerships with youth, policymakers, technology companies and other actors to co-design and test governance solutions, particularly in low and middle-income countries in Africa and Asia with large youth populations. It will achieve its goals through a multidisciplinary approach that combines cutting edge research, strengthening youth leadership, driving innovations in policy and practice, and shifting public and political agendas."

• Governing Health Futures 2030
• Press release
• Digital transformations – why we must build digital health citizenship (by Ilona Kickbusch)

"A new WHO/Europe study published in The Lancet Digital Health shows that the use of mobile technologies, telemedicine and other digital tools intended to support clinical decisions have improved health workers’ performance and mental health, as well as their skills and competencies. The study, conducted globally, also warns that there are still gaps in the evaluation and impact of these technologies in lower- and middle-income countries."

• World Health Organization
• The Lancet Digital Health

"While they offer the opportunity to speed progress towards the Sustainable Development Goals, digital technologies and artificial intelligence are designed, accessed and used in a context shaped by profound inequalities, both among and within countries. UN leaders have affirmed that “human rights should be at the heart of tech governance”, and high-level policy discussions over the next few years could represent a turning point. Young people and civil society in low- and middle-income countries have had little voice in digital governance, but they must have a role in shaping those discussions, or risk missing the opportunity to establish rights-based digital governance for the future."

• Centre for Interdisciplinary Methodologies, University of Warwick
• RECORDING of the Digital Innovation New Tech & Right to Health - UNHRC Side Event

"At a critical moment in the global digital transformation, with media and world leaders debating whether artificial intelligence (AI) might pose a future existential threat to humans, are we talking enough about the harms already being done in the present? A new thematic report to the UN Human Rights Council from the UN Special Rapporteur on the Right of Everyone to the Highest Attainable Standard of Physical and Mental Health, Dr. Tlaleng Mofokeng, highlights the real-world threats we face in the ongoing spread of digital technologies in global health, some real benefits, and the urgent need for a broader public conversation about human rights and health in the digital age."

• OpinioJuris

"Digital health is already an important and growing part of most health systems. It offers a huge opportunity to accelerate progress towards achieving the Sustainable Development Goal of reaching Universal Health Coverage (UHC) by 2030. The equitable, inclusive and sustainable digital transformation of health systems can help scale up access to primary health care services, strengthen resilient health systems, close equity gaps to deliver health for all. Despite progress, many countries are not on track to achieve their UHC targets by 2030, with the COVID-19 pandemic having thrown many countries off course."

• Transform Health

"Around the world, today’s cities are vibrant, metropolitan hubs, filled with buzzing food scenes, job and education opportunities, night life and so on. It is therefore no surprise that young people flock to these urban centres for new opportunities, connections and excitement. The pull of large urban areas has resulted in more people settling and bringing up children in cities – meaning that now 60% of rapidly growing city populations are projected to be less than 18 years old by 2030. While cities are places of opportunity and growth, from education to healthcare, to employment, our city systems are currently failing young people with increased exclusion and poverty in disadvantaged urban areas, damaging their health and well-being, and leaving them at risk of being left behind."

• Tech Monitor

"Closing the digital divide: More and better funding for the digital transformation of health’ frames the thinking on how to guide investments and action for digital health transformation in low and middle income countries. The report lays out six key recommendations for national governments, international donors, and the private sector to increase and improve investments towards building digitally-enabled health systems that improve health outcomes for all. This report has been developed by Transform Health, with the support of its partners PATH and Joep Lange Institute, and with research contributions from regional networks and the Young Experts: Tech 4 Health."

• Closing-the-digital-divide-mainReport.pdf
• ExecutiveSummary-FINAL.pdf

• Transform Health

"The Governing Health Futures 2030 (GHFutures2030) Commission’s report outlines how digital technologies and data are transforming health and healthcare. The Commission observed that health systems in all regions of the world are becoming increasingly digital first. This means that rather than travelling to a health facility for a face-to-face consultation with a health worker, a patient can access a growing range of health services and health information through digital channels. From Rwanda to the United Kingdom, governments are aspiring to make digital first healthcare available to their whole populations. Digital tools and services such as virtual consultations with doctors, digital sensors and wearable technologies to monitor vital signs, and AI-assisted health information tools are becoming increasingly integrated. As they become the norm, it is likely that we will very soon stop talking about ‘digital’ health and ‘digital first’ health systems."

• Governing Health Futures 2030

"2021 was a busy year for Transform Health. We formally announced the coalition and our commitment to work with partners to advocate for the enabling environment necessary to ensure the digital transformation of health systems. (...) We are proud to share the progress that we have made towards our three strategic objectives – building political will, advocating for a health data governance framework, and enabling increased and coordinated investments towards digital transformation – in this annual report."

• Transform Health
• Letter from our Executive Director

"We present a comprehensive Framework for Digital Health Equity, detailing key digital determinants of health (DDoH), to support the work of digital health tool creators in industry, health systems operations, and academia. The rapid digitization of healthcare may widen health disparities if solutions are not developed with these determinants in mind. Our framework builds on the leading health disparities framework, incorporating a digital environment domain. We examine DDoHs at the individual, interpersonal, community, and societal levels, discuss the importance of a root cause, multi-level approach, and offer a pragmatic case study that applies our framework."

• nature

"Another World Health Assembly (WHA) has come to an end. (...) Much more must be done to ensure inclusive and meaningful engagement from all parts of the world, including holding more of these meetings in low and lower-middle income countries and facilitating equitable participation. Transform Health went into the WHA with clear calls - for Member States to endorse a new set of equity and rights-based Health Data Governance Principles and to support the development of a global framework. These are critical milestones towards maximising the public value of health data whilst protecting individual rights, and important for Universal Health Coverage (UHC) progress and pandemic preparedness and response."

• Transform Health at the 75th World Health Assembly
• Recording: Strengthening the governance of health data: side-event at #WHA75

On World Health Day, organisations around the world are shining a light on health data, with the launch of the Health Data Governance Principles – the first global set of principles to guide the use of data in health systems. They are grounded in human rights and equity, and oriented towards supporting resilient public health systems that can deliver health for all. With the rights of individuals and communities at their core, the Principles are clustered around three key objectives: protect people, promote health value, and prioritise equity. They create a common vision where all people and communities can share, use and benefit from health data.

• Health Data Governance Principles
• Download (pdf | 130 kB)

"The #HealthDataPrinciples are the result of a global collaborative effort: over 200 digital health experts from 130 organisations around the world came together to develop these Principles in an inclusive, bottom-up process stewarded by Transform Health." These principles will launch on April 7th 2022, but you can already learn more about these in this #gdhub episode: Kirsten Mathieson, Policy Lead at ,Transform Health, is providing insights into the development of the ‘Health Data Governance Principals’, a set of globally unifying, human rights-based Health Data Governance Principles that can provide a common vision for health data governance. Hosted by Cléo Schwerzmann (gdhub)."

• gdhub Voices
• Transform Health

Transform Health und seine Partner:innen rufen den WHO Executivrat dazu auf, die globale Vewaltung von Gesundheitsdaten an der 75. Weltgesundheitsversammlung im Mai 2022 als Tagesordnungspunkt zu verhandeln. Für die internationale Zusammenarbeit bedarf es global gültiger Rechtsvorschriften, um den Austausch von Daten zu ermöglichen. Die Governance von Gesundheitsdaten muss auf den Grundsätzen von Gleichheit und Menschenrechten beruhen, so die Forderung. Regierungen müssen sicherstellen, dass alle Menschen gleichermassen von der Erhebung von Gesundheitsdaten profitieren.

• Transform Health

"The COVID-19 pandemic has led to disastrous socio-economic implications. To understand the impact of the pandemic on various aspects and highlight the centrality of mental health in an individual’s life ETI and PATH collaborated to release a white-paper series ‘Breaking the Barriers: Pathways to addressing mental health and long-COVID impact in India. (...) This whitepaper series, developed in collaboration with national and international experts from different fields, attempts to highlight the impact of the pandemic on various aspects of life, the ensuing mental health crisis, and initiate a discussion on the way forward to address this. We hope this series will highlight the centrality of mental health in human life, and the urgent need to view mental health holistically, addressing not only the symptoms, but also the underlying factors in a comprehensive and sustainable manner across the country."

• Path

"In this joint commission from The Lancet and Financial Times on Governing Health Futures 2030, we explore how AI and other digital advancements are being harnessed to improve healthcare in the world’s poorest regions. - Read among others about how "Uganda tackles diseases with a phone call" or about "Five ways AI can democratise African healthcare"."

• Financial Times

Eine allgemeine Gesundheitsversorgung (Universal Health Coverage) ist noch immer für die Hälfte der Menschheit, vor allem in den Ländern mit niedrigem und mittlerem Einkommen nicht gewährleistet. Es wird daher dringend empfohlen, innovative Ansätze wie sie durch die Digitalisierung im Gesundheitswesen mittlerweile zur Verfügung stehen, auch im globalen Süden zu implementieren. Obwohl heute fast weltweit ein digitales Breitbandnetz zur Verfügung steht, haben viele Regierungen dieses Potential noch zu wenig erkannt und in den primären Gesundheitseinrichtungen umgesetzt. Im digitalen Zeitalter ist die digitale Transformation in der Gesundheitsversorgung jedoch unumgänglich. Transform Health empfiehlt mehrere Massnahmen, um eine solche Transformation zu erreichen.

• Bericht von Transform Health
• Transform Health

"Together with partners, Transform Health has been stewarding the development of a set of representative and human rights-based Health Data Governance Principles. Grounded in UHC, the Principles bring a human rights and equity lens to digital health, and are oriented toward supporting sustainable and resilient public health systems. (...) The current draft of the Principles has been developed and driven by civil society through an inclusive and consultative process. Seven global and regional consultations have already been carried out to gather perspectives and expertise from across geographies, sectors and stakeholders. This public consultation will allow the Principles to be further refined, supported, and endorsed by an even wider audience."

• Transform Health
• HEALTH DATA GOVERNANCE PRINCIPLES (Draft for Public Consultation)

"In the past two decades, digital health interventions have become increasingly widespread globally, with the aim of broadening access to and improving quality of health services, while empowering people to have greater control of their health and well-being. However, in the Global South, structural and systemic factors (racism, gender inequality, socio-economic inequalities, and other underlying social determinants of health) affect access to health services and information, and this extends to digital health: only 35% of people are connected to the internet. The COVID-19 pandemic has made it even more apparent that internet access is becoming a basic need, and meeting that need will require strengthened Information and Communications Technology (ICT) regulatory systems and investments that center community needs."

• Inception Paper

"As the World Health Organization brings together experts for a Health Data Governance summit (June 30th), and as health leaders consider the inclusion of digital technology at the World Health Assembly and at the G7, governance of digital technologies, data and artificial intelligence (AI) has never before seen the level of priority and attention, particularly in the wake of COVID-19. Transform Health takes the opportunity to continue reflecting on this critical issue by making the case for stronger global health data governance to close the digital divide and invest in digitally-enabled health systems, particularly for the most vulnerable such as women, children and adolescents."

• Transform Health