GLOBAL INITIATIVE ON DIGITAL HEALTH (Syllabus: GS Paper 2 – Health)
Context: Recently, the Union Minister of Health and Family Welfare virtually addressed the public launch event of the World Health Organization’s Global Initiative on Digital Health (GIDH).
Global Initiative on Digital Health (GIDH)
- About: The GIDH is a WHO managed network which was unanimously adopted by all G20 countries, invited countries and international organizations.
- 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.
- Membership: It is open to all institutions engaged in digital health.
- Four main components
oCountry Needs Tracker: Facilitating digital health investments to be informed by country priorities;
oCountry Resource Portal: Identifying traditional as well as innovative resource opportunities, and promoting transparency, while reducing the risk of duplication for enabling a standards-based prospective and retrospective analysis of resourcing gaps in digital health.
oTransformation Toolbox: Advocating for quality-assured tools and resources that strengthen country capacity and autonomy to manage the national digital health transformation.
oConvening and Knowledge Exchange: Promoting strengthened collaboration and knowledge exchange across global, regional, and national networks in digital health.
- Objectives of the Initiative:
oAssess and prioritize the country’s needs for sustainable digital health transformation.
oIncrease the alignment of country-level digital health resources and unfunded priorities.
oSupport the accelerated achievement of the strategic objectives of the Global Strategy on Digital Health 2020-2025.
oBuild capacity and converge efforts to encourage local development, maintenance, and adaptation of digital health technologies to continuously changing needs.
