“This Delhi Declaration on digital health firmly aligns with our Prime Minister, Narendra Modi’s Digital India.” This was stated by Ashwini Kumar Choubey, Minister of State for Health and Family Welfare, at the concluding session of the ‘4th Global Digital Health Partnership Summit,’ here today. As part of the high-level summit, the ministers and delegation also adopted the Delhi Declaration on digital health for sustainable development, which called for WHO’s leadership in digital health and for it to establish a specific mechanism to centrally coordinate digital health to assist its Member States.Smt Anupriya Patel, Minister of State for Health and Family Welfare also graced the occasion along Dr. Poonam Khetrapal Singh, Regional Director, WHO South-East Asia Region (SEARO) and Ms. Preeti Sudan, Secretary (Health). Ministers and government officials from over 34 countries attended the event to discuss the impact of digital technologies on health systems and health services delivery.The global intergovernmental meeting on digital health is being hosted by the Ministry of Health and Family Welfarein collaboration with World Health Organization (WHO) and the Global Digital Health Partnership (GDHP).Shri Choubey further stated that the declaration marks India’s commitment in maximizing the digital health investments to ensure UHC and realize Ayushman Bharat”. He further stressed on the need for sharing best practices in Digital Health among the countries.
Anupriya Patel highlighted the initiatives of the Government in Digital Health. She said, ‘engaging citizens in partnering with government for planning and management of digital health interventions in health services delivery and improving governance are important.’Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, Director-General, WHO in his live video address shared that, “Digital technologies are not just the latest trend – they are a vital tool for strengthening primary care, achieving universal health coverage, and achieving Sustainable Development Goals.” Speaking on bridging the gap of access to health services, Dr Tedros said, “Telemedicine, remote care and mobile health are helping us transform health by delivering care in people’s homes, instead of in hospitals and clinicsMs. Preeti Sudan, Secretary (Health) emphasized on the need make technology accessible so that people can benefit from digital health. “Our vision is to create an integrated digital health platform and have longitudinal electronic health record for 1.3 billion people of India with a view to reduce cost of repeated diagnostics, reduce out of pocket expenditure and ensure precision medication,” she said.