Global Digital Health Monitor launches State of Digital Health Report 2023
December 6, 2023 – Washington, DC – The Global Digital Health Monitor (GDHM) launched its State of Digital Health Report 2023 at the Global Digital Health Forum.
A foundational keystone of the newly launched World Health Organization Global Initiative on Digital Health (GIDH), the Global Digital Health Monitor (GDHM) helps countries to benchmark, prioritize, and monitor digital health progress at the country, regional, and global levels. The GDHM enables countries and regions to track their digital health maturity over time, advocate for resources, identify countries that are performing well to facilitate cross-country learning, and support private sector entrepreneurs and investors to strategically prioritize new market entry and strategies. The Monitor is available in multiple languages and includes dynamic visualizations by region and within countries for year-on-year monitoring.
“WHO is working, across all its six regions and with member-states, to amplify the use of the Global Digital Health Monitor as an official WHO maturity instrument. Under the new Global Initiative on Digital Health, we see the Monitor as an important tool to develop country plans and align limited resources towards building strong foundations. We’re really excited about this partnership and what it can do to support digital health transformation,” says Dr. Alain Labrique, Director, Department of Digital Health & Innovation at the World Health Organisation.
The tool is being actively used by international agencies ranging from the World Bank, which used the platform to inform their flagship report Digital-in-Health and by the Africa CDC as part of their Regional Digital Health Strategy and forthcoming Africa Digital Health Index. Based on an analysis of 67 countries representing all WHO regions participating in the 2023 GDHM Survey, the field of digital health is stabilizing and maturing steadily. Key areas of progress from the State of Digital Health Report 2019 analysis of 25 countries include COVID-19 catalyzed improvements in maturity in Infrastructure with large-scale investments in broader digital transformation as well as Policy, Legislation, and Compliance with accelerated adoption of cross-border data sharing associated with personal health records and vaccine certification.
"The State of Digital Health Report 2023 plays a crucial role in shedding light on the current landscape of digital transformation of health. It provides valuable insights into areas of global strength and achievement like Leadership and Governance. and important policy gaps in digital health regulations in emerging technologies such as Generative AI and a call to action for more equitable and intentional approaches to digital transformation of health,” says Dr. Patricia Mechael Co-Founder and Chief Executive Officer Co-Founder at HealthEnabled, a digital health nonprofit that co-facilitates the GDHM with the Global Development Incubator (GDI), an organization that builds social impact startups and partnerships.
Over 65 countries have participated in the platform to date in 2023, representing more than 2.5 billion people globally. Development agencies such as The Global Fund and Gavi, The Vaccine Alliance are also using the platform to inform and monitor their investments in digital health. GDHM has been vetted and is now a Digital Square Global Good and will be included in the next update of the Global Goods Handbook.
State of Digital Health Report 2023 Country Case Study
The Philippines completed the GDHM in 2018 and again in 2023. Over this five-year period, they recorded improvements in the areas of legislation, policy & compliance; infrastructure; and services & applications. They continued to score highly in strategy & investment; and noted a decrease in maturity in the areas of leadership & governance; and standards & interoperability. Key insights that came out of the process of completing the GDHM included a recognition of the major role that the private sector is playing in digital health within the Philippines. This provides an opportunity for the government to focus less on services and applications, and more on policies, standards, and frameworks. In addition, they have noted a need (whether through the government or private sector) to increase attention towards patients, service providers, and health system managers, especially to use AI to improve efficiency in health service delivery and decision-making.
Health systems throughout the world are increasingly engaging in digital health transformation initiatives to increase access to and quality of care, as well as shape more forward-looking policies to promote responsible AI, mitigate the growing digital divide, and facilitate the achievement of universal health coverage.
The State of Digital Health is an annual report based on an analysis of countries with completed surveys in that year. In anticipation of the State of Digital Health Report 2024, we invite current participating countries to review and update their country information for year-on-year performance monitoring and new countries to set a baseline. Countries looking to learn more about their digital health maturity, how it compares to other countries, and how they can improve it are encouraged to reach out to info@digitalhealthmonitor.org.
Media contact: For media inquiries, contact communications@globaldevincubator.org.
The GDHM is incubated by the Global Development Incubator (GDI) with digital health technical leadership and facilitation provided by HealthEnabled.