Foreword
Who is this document for? Those who need to brief decision-makers about the issues to be considered when making small or large investments in digital health. These decision-makers may be senior government officials, but this document is also intended to be of use to those within the health system (e.g., health managers), or to those supporting the health system (e.g., donors).
What is the purpose of this document? In addition to being a guide on how to think about the digital health investment process, a further purpose of this document is to help digital health specialists tasked with assembling the data needed to enable a well-informed investment decision to be made. A digital health impact framework (DHIF) is introduced to do this. A document supporting DHIF manual and spreadsheets illustrating five use cases are also being published.
What is the expected outcome of this document? Governments will reflect on their understanding of the issues involved in maximizing the benefits and minimizing the risks of digital health by developing well-formed digital health strategies and associated investment plans, and will ensure that digital health investments, large or small, take advantage of the DHIF approach in the appropriate level of detail.
Who prepared the document? The development of the paper was led by the consultants Peter Drury, Michael Stahl and Tom Jones and the ADB team leader Susann Roth with support from Donna Medeiros. A team of experts from the Asia ehealth Information Network (AeHIN) and the Standards and Interoperability Lab Asia (SIL-A) led by Alvin Marcelo and Philip Zuniga provided input, validated and tested the usefulness of the guidance document. A regional consultation workshop attended by several country representatives from Malaysia, Myanmar, Thailand, Taipei,China, Philippines, and Viet Nam was held in January in Bangkok and led to the endorsement of the core content of the document. The ADB health sector team provided also valuable input and ensured relevance in the ADB context. The figures in this document were designed by Keisuke Taketani. We thank all contributors for making this document practical and useful.
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Author: Peter Drury, Susann Roth, Tom Jones, Michael Stahl, Donna Medeiros