Harnessing digital transformation to improve health

Supporting research to understand how digital health – including artificial intelligence – can enhance service delivery, empower users and support better decision-making, helping countries integrate digital health into national systems.

Overview

Digital health is reshaping how people live and how health care is delivered. However, the benefits of this transformation are not shared equally. The Alliance supports research and learning to ensure that digital transformation advances health equity rather than exacerbating existing disparities.

This work moves beyond the deployment of isolated technologies to focus on system-level change. The Alliance examines how digital innovations are integrated into national health systems and how governance arrangements must adapt to ensure that digital tools serve the public good.

Systems framing

The Alliance approaches digital health not as a series of technical fixes, but as a fundamental health systems challenge. Too often, digital solutions are implemented as vertical, supply-driven interventions, increasing fragmentation and administrative burdens on health workers.

Work in this area reframes digital transformation by focusing on three interrelated dimensions:

• Governance over gadgets – strengthening state capacity to regulate and steer digitalization in ways that address system bottlenecks and minimize risks;
• Integration over isolation – supporting research on the transition from fragmented data silos to interoperable systems that enable continuity of care and informed decision-making; and
• The human element – examining how digital tools affect the daily work of primary care managers and reshape relationships between health systems and citizens.

How the Alliance approaches this area

The Alliance’s strategy for 2024–2028 prioritizes digital transformation that improves health equity across three core dimensions: