In virtual conferences held over the month of February, the director of the Pan American Health Organization, Carissa F. Etienne, called on countries to seek a new approach to public health that is more holistic and inclusive, and that considers new challenges such as digital transformation.
The Department of Evidence and Intelligence for Action in Health (EIH) of the Pan American Health Organization (PAHO) held the series of conferences: "Conference: From the evolution of Information Systems for Health (IS4H) to the Digital Transformation of the Health Sector". The conferences virtually brought together Ministries of Health and other government agencies from all over the continent, specialized in information systems, Digital Health, digital government, epidemiological surveillance, telecommunications, among other topics.
The virtual conferences were held in three sessions, the first on February 9, in which the IS4H action plan was presented, the dialogue between countries was opened for the exchange of experiences and the instructions on the questionnaire of Digital Health indicators were presented; in the second sesión, on February 16 the assistants talked about the progress on IS4H, also the results of the questionnaire were presented; finally on February 23, in the final session, the call for action of the Member States was made.
The eight principles of the digital transformation of the health sector were presented during the last session on February 23: Lograr la conectividad universal en el sector salud para el 2030.
- Achieve Universal conectivity in the ehalth sector by 2030
- Co-create digital public health godos for a more equitable Word
- Accelerate progress toward inclusive digital health, with emphasis on the most vulnerable populations
- Implement open, sistainable, interoperable digital information and health systems
- Mainstream human rights across all areas of digital transformation in health
- Participate in global cooperation on artificial intelligence and any emerging technology
- Establish mechanisms for the confidentiality and secutiry of information in the digital public health setting
- Design a renewed public health architecture for the age of digital interdependence
One of the objectives of these sessions was to identify the countries' main IS4H needs and opportunities for improvement, as well as to facilitate the incorporation of development partners interested in the main needs. PAHO reaffirmed its support for the strengthening of IS4H and the adoption of digital tools in health systems.
On the other hand, PAHO Director Dr. Carissa F. Etienne mentioned during her interventions that public health requires a new approach that is “much more holistic and inclusive, that considers new critical factors for the success of interventions, such as connectivity, bandwidth, interoperability, artificial intelligence”. “This renewed approach must also consider inequities in the digital era to ensure that the digital divide does not widen the gaps in health inequities," the director explained.
The director also recognized the importance of understanding the conditions of the health systems of each country, as well as their capacity to respond to the diverse needs of individuals and communities. “And the only way to know this is if we have information systems capable of capturing and processing critical and disaggregated data and making it available to the entire health system without exceptions,” she said.
PAHO's strategy on IS4H, began in November 2016 through the meeting with Member States belonging to the Caribbean. The following year, the implementation of IS4H in Central America was discussed, in 2018 the same happened in South America. By October 2019, the discussion on IS4H included all Member States. In 2020 the World Health Organization (WHO) strategy introduced Share-Listen-Act , with a series of conferences on current global health developments and challenges, which included Digital Transformation. This year WHO/PAHO launched the theme Collaborate-Co-create-Monitor.
