Advancing Health Outcomes & Health System Performance with Digital Health Solutions: The Role and Opportunity for Governments, the Private Sector and Development Investors

Countries around the world are in the midst of rapid development and adopting digital technologies to advance and transform industries, governments, economies and societies. For health, leveraging digital solutions can expand access to high-quality, affordable essential services and commodities to all. Additionally, digital health solutions can effectively and efficiently capture and synthesize information across all levels of the health system to improve performance and strengthen institutional capacity. However, there is a caveat: the dividends of digital technology can only be fully unlocked in the context of good digital governance and systematic, user-centric capacity building to facilitate effective use of digital solutions from centralized to decentralized levels and between private and public sectors.

So as donors, the private sector, and governments capitalize on the digital momentum and invest in innovative technologies to help achieve key health outcomes and strengthen systems, there are few questions we need to ask ourselves:

1. How do we think about and understand the roles each actor plays in establishing and advancing digital health efforts; and
2. What changes in the system are needed to support successful digital transformation and ensure the users are the ultimate beneficiary. 

The Marketlinks webinar, through a moderated panel discussion, introduced participants to the world of digital through the perspective of the health sector and the role of public and private actors. The panelists — with representation from USAID, PATH, and CommonHealth  — explored the questions above and highlighted a few examples of digital health applications/investments.