Transform Health’s recommendations
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The development of the next Global Strategy on Digital Health for the period 2028–2033 is underway. Led by WHO, this includes consultations with Member States and other stakeholders between December 2025 and June 2026 to gather inputs and feedback to help shape its development.
As part of this consultative process, Transform Health has set out the following recommendations to help inform the strategy. We believe that the next Global Strategy must:
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- Prioritise critical issues, such as inclusion, rights‑based governance, sustainable financing, strong national leadership and interoperable architectures
- Move decisively from vision to implementation, with the Roadmap to 2030 providing a practical framework for national action
- Embed robust monitoring, reporting and accountability, including mechanisms to ensure meaningful civil society participation
This will help ensure the strategy drives measurable progress in digital health transformation that is prioritised and tracked to deliver Universal Health Coverage (UHC). It will also ensure that digital health is equitable, inclusive, rights-based and people-centred, to deliver health for all in the digital age.
Prioritise critical issues
Previous digital health frameworks have articulated strong aspirations, yet gaps remain. The next Global Strategy should sharpen its focus on key priority areas, including: equity and inclusion, governance, financing, institutional coordination, and technical architecture. These proposed priorities align with the five pillars of the Roadmap to 2030 and offer concrete areas for integration into the Global Strategy.
a) Equitable, inclusive, people‑centred digital health ecosystems
Digital transformation must be designed with people at the centre. Too often, digital health initiatives prioritise technology deployment over participation, equity and trust. Digital health systems that are not inclusive risk deepening inequities and eroding trust. People‑centred, inclusive design will ensure digital health helps close, rather than widen, UHC coverage gaps.
The Global Strategy should:
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- Stipulate the integration of structured civil society and community engagement mechanisms within national digital health governance.
- Embed equity and inclusion indicators within national monitoring frameworks.
- Support national digital literacy and public awareness programmes, including on data governance and AI.
- Mandate public reporting of disaggregated data on digital access and use.
- Address structural barriers, including the gender digital divide and connectivity inequities.
b) Rights‑based digital health and health data governance
Robust governance frameworks are foundational to responsible, ethical and equitable digital transformation. However, many countries lack comprehensive legislation and regulations governing health data, AI use, and digital tools. Without legal and regulatory guardrails, there are risks that the digital transformation could undermine rights and public confidence, or that digital tools and data won’t be fully harnessed for public benefit and to further health outcomes. Protecting people’s rights in the digital space is a prerequisite for sustained public trust in digital systems and tools.
The Global Strategy should:
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- Support adoption of comprehensive digital health and health data governance legislation aligned with rights‑based principles.
- Advance the development, endorsement and implementation of a global health data governance and AI framework to promote coherence and mutual accountability.
- Promote post‑legislative review mechanisms to adapt to evolving technologies.
- Ensure safeguards for AI‑assisted decision‑making, including human oversight and redress mechanisms.
- Support structured public consultation processes in the development and review of legislation.
c) Coordinated, sustainable investment aligned with national priorities
Digital health financing remains fragmented and overly focused on short‑term projects rather than long‑term system strengthening. Investment must reinforce sustainability, prioritise equity, be coordinated, and be guided by national strategies and priorities. Predictable, aligned, and integrated financing is central to ensuring digital transformation drives UHC progress rather than standalone pilots.
The Global Strategy should:
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- Require dedicated digital health budget lines within national health budgets and financing.
- Promote adoption and use of a digital health investment taxonomy to help standardise classification and tracking of investment.
- Integrate digital health expenditure tracking into National Health Accounts and global reporting systems.
- Guide investment away from project‑based funding to long‑term investment in foundational areas, including the enabling environment, governance, workforce, and digital public infrastructure.
- Encourage innovative financing mechanisms that expand fiscal space and domestic funding.
- Ensure transparency in digital health investments, including public reporting.
d) Strong governance structures and national leadership to steward the digital health transformation
Digital transformation requires institutional clarity and cross‑sector coordination. Many countries lack formal governance structures that bring together health, ICT and finance Ministries and agencies. Where such leadership and coordination are absent, digital health investments and implementation will remain fragmented and undermine their contribution to UHC.
The Global Strategy should:
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- Stipulate the establishment of national digital health coordination units (or similar) with clear mandates and resources.
- Promote cross‑ministerial mechanisms at head‑of‑government level.
- Integrate digital transformation into national development and health sector plans.
- Ensure parliamentary oversight mechanisms are in place.
- Institutionalise structured civil society engagement in governance and monitoring.
e) Interoperable, secure and sustainable digital health architecture
Persistent fragmentation, weak interoperability and insufficient cybersecurity undermine health system efficiency and resilience. An interoperable, secure, and sustainable digital health architecture is crucial to connect systems, protect people, and strengthen health systems.
The Global Strategy should:
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- Promote adoption and localisation of global interoperability standards.
- Support scaling of health information exchanges.
- Encourage infrastructure assessments to identify connectivity and system gaps.
- Integrate health systems with broader digital public infrastructure, including civil registration and social protection systems.
- Mandate regular compliance audits and public reporting on standards adoption.
- Support secure, patient‑centred, longitudinal health records that are accessible across care points.
Move decisively from vision to implementation
The Global Strategy on Digital Health presents a critical opportunity to guide action on digital health, towards UHC progress by 2030. But, strategy alone is not enough. There is a need for political prioritisation, operational clarity, coordinated investment and accountability. The Roadmap to 2030: Health for All in the Digital Age offers a structured action‑oriented framework to support implementation of global commitments at national level. It is grounded in two core premises:
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- Government leadership and ownership are essential – digital transformation must be embedded in political programmes, legislation, costed plans and coordinated governance structures.
- Civil society engagement drives political prioritisation and trust – governments act when citizens demand action. Meaningful participation strengthens legitimacy and accountability.
Therefore, we encourage WHO and Member States to recognise and explicitly reference the Roadmap (as well as other nationally‑defined implementation frameworks) as a practical companion framework that can support national operationalisation of the Global Strategy.
Embed robust reporting, monitoring and accountability
To support effective implementation, the next Global Strategy must include clear reporting, monitoring and accountability mechanisms to track progress – accountability must be built into the system. This is essential to move from articulating aspirations and guidance, to accountable commitments and action. These mechanisms should also make visible how digital health transformation contributes to and accelerates progress on UHC.
This should include:
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- A clearly defined global monitoring framework with measurable milestones toward 2030 and 2033.
- Integration of digital transformation indicators into UHC monitoring processes.
- Structured Member State reporting through the World Health Assembly, including voluntary peer review.
- A multi‑stakeholder accountability mechanism, including civil society engagement (e.g. civil society shadow reports) as part of the Strategy’s formal monitoring and accountability framework through the WHA, complementing Member State reporting
- Establishing a national governance and monitoring framework, including national public reporting with structured opportunities for civil society and communities to review and respond to progress, and parliamentary oversight.
Delivering health for all in the digital age
If implemented boldly, the Global Strategy can accelerate progress towards UHC goals. But if implemented poorly, it risks reinforcing inequality, fragmentation and mistrust.
The next Global Strategy on Digital Health must therefore (1) prioritise the key issues outlined; (2) be backed by concrete implementation support; and (3) establish robust monitoring, reporting and accountability arrangements, including a strong role for civil society. By doing so the Global Strategy can become a powerful engine for delivering health for all in the digital age – turning digital health from a series of isolated projects into a coherent, rights‑based transformation of health systems that advances equity and leaves no one behind.