Cross-border initiatives key to advancing digital health: policy forum

Senior healthcare, industry and research professionals have called for a greater role for cross-border initiatives, underpinned by global standards and specification pathways. In particular, experts cited the importance of international collaboration on new and disruptive technologies in order to collectively advance digital health for their citizens.

The first International Policy Forum for digital health was co-hosted by the International Medical Informatics Association (IMIA) and the Australasian Institute of Digital Health on 8 and 9 July 2023 during the World Congress, with a large number of regional and global participants representing public and private sectors.

Held over two days as part of global digital health and informatics congress MedInfo 2023, the forum brought together senior executives from governments, international VIPs, ministerial delegations, as well as senior representatives from industry and the scientific community.

In its public communiqué, the policy forum foreshadowed an increase in consumer demand for information to aid personal decision-making about health and care.

It emphasised continual evolution of the digital world in the delivery of health care and claimed that governments had a responsibility to ensure its quality and efficacy. One of the themes of the MedInfo forum calls for healthcare leaders to be “bold, radical, and stay the course”, saying there were common challenges across nations that needed to be addressed.

“Leaders across health care must make tough decisions, such as addressing workforce challenges, changing behaviours, introducing progressive enabling regulation and ensuring the healthcare system adapts to an ageing population using digital technology,” the policy forum stated.

Calling for healthcare systems to achieve more complete, reliable and accessible healthcare information via standards that enhanced interoperability, this would drive better healthcare experiences, integrate care and support the rights of citizens to have access to their healthcare information.

Policy discussions also covered innovations such as the deployment of artificial intelligence, stating that AI required careful integration with existing healthcare systems to ensure health equity was maintained and that systems remained safe and trusted.

“This requires governance structures that have sufficient authority, while also being adaptable to rapidly changing technology capabilities.”

The International Policy Forum Communique is available in full here.

Image credit: iStock.com/Feodora Chiosea