Optimizing the Impact of COVID-19 on Digital Health Strategies: Building Stronger Health Systems for the Future, Part I

The COVID-19 pandemic has highlighted the many ways in which countries’ digital health strategies have helped or harmed efforts to stem the tide of the disease. As we think about the lessons learned, it is vital to improve digital health strategies to create more robust health systems that are prepared for the next health crisis and can withstand the many population, environmental, and societal pressures we will face in the future.

What are the foundations we need to lay and the cross-sectoral strategies we need to adopt in order to adapt to meet the many future challenges? Learning from the lessons of COVID-19, what are the key policy, strategy, and implementation lessons we have learned that we use to improve our current systems?

During this two-part webinar, we will explore the successes and failures of various countries’ responses to COVID-19 and how we can turn these lessons learned into positive changes – both in our policy improvements and on-the-ground implementation – towards stronger health systems.

Register for the event HERE.

In part 1 of this series, we “assess” and understand the current digital health infrastructure and various responses in different countries. We will analyze the key features that made these responses successes or failures and talk about the great task of coordinating efforts across sectors and governments. We will round out the discussion by reviewing key lessons learned and those needed to make health systems more resilient to future shocks

Guest Moderator:

• Michael Stahl, Digital Policy Adviser for the National Social Protection Council in Cambodia

Speakers:

• Todd Pollack, Country Director of the Partnership for Health Advancement in Vietnam (HAIVN)
• Peter Drury, Director at Drury Consulting Ltd
• Cholpon Asambaeva, National Project Coordinator at Deutsche Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit (GIZ) German International Cooperation
• Susann Roth, WHO Digital Health Technical Advisory Group