India’s G20 Presidency can take digital health solutions across the globe
Worldwide, countries are accelerating efforts toward universal health coverage. Yet, according to the World Health Organization, 30% of the world’s population is still unable to access essential health services. Additionally, 930 million people are at risk of falling into poverty due to out-of-pocket health expenditures of 10% or more of their household budget.
Further, unregulated and fragmented healthcare delivery systems, poor administrative coordination, insufficient human resources, and lack of financial support continue to hinder progress toward universal health coverage. Digital health solutions can address most of these challenges if they are integrated into the overall health system strengthening approach for sustainability and impact. Technology can be a great enabler in facilitating an equitable and affordable healthcare system that reaches the last mile.
In 2022, the global digital health market size was valued at US$211.0 billion. It is projected to grow at a compound annual growth rate of 18.6% from 2023 to 2030. India is a part of this growth story — at an event late last year, the Union Minister of State, Prime Minister's Office, stated that India should see an 80% increase in investments in digital health in the next five years. But a robust need-gap analysis and a comprehensive understanding of its applicability are critical to making digital health sustainable and scalable.
To that end, a global/multi-country Digital Health Collaborative could galvanize efforts and accelerate the adoption and mainstreaming of digital health. There are four potential areas that the collaborative can pursue. First, it can support member countries to identify gaps and existing technology platforms that can be leveraged for healthcare. By providing technical support and guidance, it can be developed to facilitate inter-and intra-country expansion.
Second, a one-size-fits-all approach will not work, as countries have varying resources and challenges. Building lean, mean, and agile technology solutions that allow flexibility, localisation, and customisation is important. Digital Public Goods can play a pivotal role here, with the caveat that issues such as data localisation and country sovereignty should be duly acknowledged and addressed.
Third, the Collaborative needs to focus on developing successful public-private partnerships, given their proven success in addressing healthcare challenges at scale. And finally, data exchange on health is currently, minimal, largely because of the lack of a global regulatory framework. Developing a robust, efficient, and acceptable regulatory framework can have positive long-term implications in solving healthcare challenges. The Collaborative can become an advocate for the safe and regulated sharing of health data.
India’s G20 Presidency offers an opportunity to initiate thought leadership on the Collaborative. India can leverage its past experiences—it has chaired the Global Digital Health Partnership in 2019, moved the Digital Health Resolution in the 71st World Health Assembly which was globally endorsed in 2018, and supported the development of the WHO Digital Health Strategy 2020-2025. India has also successfully demonstrated its ability to develop and scale digital public infrastructure like Aadhaar and UPI, among others, which are the backbone of digital health. Digital health initiatives such as eSanjeevani, Co-WIN, Aarogya Setu, and the Ayushman Bharat Digital Mission could only be scaled up due to the digital public infrastructure in place. The G20 is well positioned to create the platform for a Digital Health Collaborative as a concrete step towards making healthcare affordable and accessible for all.
(Amit Kapoor is Chair of the Institute for Competitiveness and Faculty at Stanford University. Sameer Kanwar is Director of Digital Health, India & South Asia, PATH)
