Together towards tomorrow: partnerships powering the digital transformation of the health sector
Jarbas Barbosa da Silva, Sebastián García-Saisó, Myrna Martí, Ferdinando Regalía, Jaime Saavedra, Karin Källander, Alain Bernard Labrique, Pablo Ibarrarán, Jennifer Nelson, Tania Dmytraczenko, Marelize Görgens, James F. FitzGerald, Ernesto Báscolo, Federica Secci, Gianluca Cafagna, Emily Nicholson, Daniel Roberto Luna, Ana Estela Haddad, Marcelo José D'Agostino · Revista Panamericana de Salud Pública · 2024
This editorial presents a collective vision of unity, innovation and collaboration, and a shared desire for resilient and more equitable health systems worldwide, urging the global health community to harness the collective strength of alliances and international collaboration to guide the health sector into a new era of digital transformation and innovation.This era has been called by the United Nations Secretary-General as the age of digital interdependence (1), a concept that encapsulates the interconnectedness of our global community and highlights how advancements in one region can promote and support progress across the globe, as demonstrated by digital health interventions and reference standards that have wide applicability and replicability, with contextualization, and where the sharing of implementation experiences can lead to collective improvements in quality, sustainability and scalability.Such an era, in which technology and data are integral to global daily life, requires not only accelerating the adoption of emerging technologies but also a making a cultural shift towards more open, collaborative, digitally transformed and patient-centered health systems (2).Traditional health care delivery models have shown their limitations, particularly in their ability to quickly adapt to surges in demand and provide remote or contactless services through telehealth programs and platforms, delivered through facility-based systems or more frequently, mobile devices, or through the capacity to update algorithms and provide information to the public, responsively changing with emerging evidence or guidelines (3).The coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic was a catalyst and accelerator for the