The current working group, focused on Virtual Health and Care, is co-chaired by the Novartis Foundation and the World Health Organization and published its recommendations in June 2022.
Titled “The Future of Health and Care – driving access and equity through inclusive policies”, the report provides learnings from 23 countries and presents recommendations to help health decision makers act to prevent digital divides from increasing health inequities. The report calls on countries to implement clear policies that ensure equitable and inclusive access to virtual services for entire populations.
The 2022 report build on three previous publications:
Reimagining Global Health through Artificial Intelligence: The Roadmap to AI Maturity
The Working Group’s 2020 report, “Reimagining Global Health through Artificial Intelligence: The Roadmap to AI Maturity”, presented a landscape analysis of over 300 real-world AI solutions in health and shows the current five top use cases for how AI is successfully transforming health today. It then builds on this landscape analysis to propose a six-step roadmap for how countries can reach mature integration of AI in their own health systems.
The Novartis Foundation operationalized the recommendations in a free online assessment tool that helps countries identify where to best invest resources to successfully advance on their readiness to deploy impactful AI solutions in health. The assessment is being implemented in several countries together with local authorities, and will provide each participating country with a benchmark and national-level roadmap. The country-level insights will also feed into a whitepaper on international best practices for AI in health.
The Promise of Digital Health: Addressing Non-communicable Diseases to Accelerate Universal Health Coverage in LMICs
The Working Group’s 2018 report, The Promise of Digital Health, provides practical recommendations and best practice examples of implementing sustainable digital health solutions that address NCDs in low- and middle-income countries, therefore accelerating the achievement of Universal Health Coverage and Sustainable Development Goal 3.
Digital Health: A Call for Government Leadership and Cooperation between ICT and Health
The Working Group’s 2017 report, Digital Health: A Call for Government Leadership and Cooperation between ICT and Health created a blueprint for how ICT and health leaders and policymakers can collaborate to develop national digital health strategies.
Additional resources
- Media release: New research reveals the critical actions needed to ensure COVID-19-driven surge in virtual health and care drives health access and equity
- Report: Reimagining Global Health through Artificial Intelligence: The Roadmap to AI Maturity
- Media release: Lower-income countries could soon leapfrog high-income countries with AI-enabled health technologies, Novartis Foundation and Microsoft backed report says
- Report: The Promise of Digital Health
- Ann’s blog – Digital health is not an option, it’s a must
- Infographic: Reimagining Global Health through Artificial Intelligence: A Roadmap to AI Maturity
- Infographic: The Promise of Digital Health