The previous blog concluded by urging digital health planners as well as advisers to learn more about managing the national digital health policy forest with their peers, and referencing the www.digitalhealthpolicycourse.com as one way to do this face to face. In this blog, the focus is on using the linked version of the ‘Guidance for Investing in Digital Health‘ for sharing learning about progress and issues in digital health.
Micro-site of the Digital Health Investment Guidance Document
The pdf version of the Guidance is available on the ADB and the SIL-Asia site. On the latter, there is also a link to a micro-site which provides a summary of the key points of the Guidance and also a URL to enable a “linked version” of the Guidance to be downloaded via Dropbox.
What is in this “linked version”? In short, there are links within the text to examples of good practice at Global, Regional (Asia) and local levels on the following topics:
- Digital health challenges, strategies and priorities, and foundational investments
- Interoperability and messaging
- Integrating health information systems, and geo-coding
- Civil registration, identity and population registers
- Addressing NCDs, in particular, CVD and stroke
- Information governance
- Procurement of digital (health) services
- Supply chains.
Hypertext Links within the Digital Health Investment Guidance Document
There are also hypertext links within the text of the Guidance document to:
- “Feature boxes” for a total of 13 topics from Malaysia and Taipei
- “Illustrative points” for a total of 16 topics from Malaysia and Taipei
- Relevant ADB documents not already referenced in the Guidance.
Literature Review within the Digital Health Investment Guidance Document
In addition, there are links in the relevant section headings in the Guidance to a brief literature review of the following topics:
- Development, Health, and ICT
- Sustainable Development Goals
- Universal Health Coverage
- Investment Case issues
- Public and Patients
- Health Workers
- Health Managers
- Payers
- Investors and Donors
- Planners and Policymakers
- Forward Look.
The microsite and the dropbox-based version of the linked Guidance aim to provide a resource for the use of policymakers and advisers. The supporting Digital Health Impact Framework too provides some case studies and will become increasingly useful as more are shared.
To add, the Asia eHealth Information Network (AeHIN) has demonstrated the value of nurturing the digital health community across Asia. Through this network, countries share lessons and experiences in many ways. This linked version of the Guidance provides a framework for sharing and learning about digital health policy issues between peers.
Malaysia and Taipei kindly shared their experiences, but there is much more to be learned from other countries too. Because it is reasonably comprehensive, the Guidance provides a way to organize the many issues that need to be developed further as experiences are shared. In this sense, it helps to provide a guide to managing the forest whilst nurturing the topic-trees within it.
Updating the initial microsite and the linked Guidance document will be needed, and some resources required for prompting the development of lessons to be shared, as well as curating what comes in. But, whether face to face or remotely, digital health practitioners benefit from sharing and the co-production of knowledge.
More information about the Digital Health Investment Guidance is available here.
