Significant progress towards improving health, economic and gender equality, as well as the achievement of the Sustainable Development Goals, will require greater coordination between donors that fund eHealth.
It is essential and urgent for donors to align their investments to country digital health strategies that are in support of national health strategies. This is required to enable countries to pursue an integrated approach to strengthening health systems, to enhance and extend the delivery of quality health services, and to improve data (and the capacity to use it) for improved health outcomes.
While adhering to the Principles for Digital Development and working through existing global and regional efforts, donors will:
Collaborate to align investment with national digital health strategies.
Prioritize investments in national plans that incorporate “digital global goods” and avoid bespoke systems.
Engage early to determine and quantify long-term costs of operating, maintaining, and supporting digital health systems for sustainable country ownership.
Track investments, progress, learnings and successes in digital health systems in a transparent manner.
Strengthen donor technical skills and core capacities, including awareness of the Principles for Digital Development.
At the same time, donors will invest in:
The creation and evolution of a national digital health strategy, policy and regulatory framework in the field. Strategies include components such as architecture, standards, investment frameworks, privacy protection, and detailed operational and monitoring plans.
Systems at a level appropriate to the country’s progress along the digital health maturity continuum.
Sustainable country capacity for digital health leadership, governance, implementation, oversight, global good adoption, and donor coordination.
Scalable, sustainable, accessible, interoperable, and evidence-based digital health global goods that meet country priorities.
Diverse stakeholder information-sharing and peer-learning networks at country and regional levels to foster coordination and alignment of implementation activities.
Digital Investments Principles / Principles of Donor Alignment for Digital Health – Launched at the World Health Summit in Berlin on October 16, 2018. The below agencies and organizations have endorsed the Digital Investment Principles.
