Imagining a lean and agile digital health ecosystem – a measure of pandemic responsiveness

摘要

The COVID19 pandemic has laid bare stark inadequacies and disparities in health systems all over the world, particularly so in low/middle income countries [1]. Recent events highlight that strong political will and prior preparedness for health-related emergencies are critical to being able to think and act at the same time. A necessary requirement is rapid access to, and synthesis of, the right in- formation. In a time of crisis, the question we are all asking ourselves is, how do we come together, lever- age our strengths and resources to combat this enormous challenge? The other question we need to be ask- ing ourselves is, how can our systems be set up to do the same? A digital health system that is smart, agile, performs early warning functions and is programmed to detect and inform on inequities in health care, can be a life-saving tool, especially in low resource settings.