Achieving one of the three priority areas agreed upon during India’s G20 presidency in 2023, the World Health Organization (WHO) Tuesday launched the Global Initiative on Digital Health (GIDH) virtually, a platform for sharing knowledge and digital products among countries. At the launch of GIDH, Union Health Minister Mansukh Mandaviya and India’s representative to the UN Arindam Bagchi addressed the gathering. 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, and knowledge exchange. Calling it a “momentous day”, Mandaviya said, “we have achieved the vision of establishing an institutional framework for digital health. This was a key deliverable of India’s G20 presidency that was agreed upon in the Gandhinagar meeting in the presence of Dr Tedros (WHO director-general). This is a testament to our shared goal of digital health.” He said the platform will help in democratising digital health technologies, especially for countries of the Global South. He also urged the new director of WHO-South East Asia Region Saima Wazed to champion the implementation of digital health. Mandaviya said the Ayushman Bharat Digital Mission is working towards creating a seamless electronic health record system in India. Bagchi said that the pandemic was a catalyst for digital transformation, with India tracking cases digitally along with managing the largest vaccination drive through its CoWIN platform. He said the platform allowed India to issue digital, verifiable vaccination certificates. He spoke about Ayushman Bharat Digital Mission creating safe health accounts for all and the teleconsultation platform E Sanjeevni providing 140 million consultations so far. WHO DG Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus: “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. There is fragmentation and overlap because new tools are built without following common standards or shared vision. Health workers should not have to carry different devices for different diseases or have to maintain both electronic and physical records. We need systems that can speak to each other. Right now wheels are being re-invented because of poor knowledge sharing, sometimes within countries.” Tomas Lamanauskas, Deputy Secretary-General of International Telecommunication Union, said while nearly half the world’s population might not have access to health services they need, nearly 90% have access to a 3G connection showing the potential for digital health.
