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FIND statement at the plenary session on GIDH during the 3rd G20 health working group meeting

Achieving a universal digital personal health record, enabled by digital public infrastructure

Delivered by Marta Fernandez Suarez, FIND, Chief Technology Officer
4 June 2024, Salvador, Brazil

Thank you, Chair.

We commend the Presidency’s efforts to foster commitment and collaboration on strengthening digital public infrastructure (DPI) for health to ensure that individuals and health systems have timely access to health data, including diagnostic data. DPI enables accurate diagnosis and continuity of care, provides people the agency to monitor their own health, and strengthens public health surveillance.

FIND has been collaborating with partners to support the inclusion of standards-based, context-appropriate technologies in national digital health systems, for example, by leveraging interoperable, existing digital technologies to support one health surveillance. We are also advocating and providing technical support to diagnostics industry players for the inclusion of HL7/FHIR connectivity standards in digitally-enabled diagnostic instruments. Based on our experience, FIND believes that for countries to implement person-centered health systems, policies must be framed that address the following:

  • Enhancing digital literacy, and strengthening the implementation of interoperability standards, cybersecurity and data governance,
  • Investing in the development, evidence generation and maintenance of digital diagnostic technologies as public goods so that diagnostic data is part of the design of any DPI for health, and
  • Creating information sharing and learning networks via the GIDH platform for countries to share best practices on implementing DPI frameworks including personal health records.

FIND supports the development of the DPI Reference Architecture for National Digital Transformation and suggests that GIDH collects and leverages learnings and experiences from existing country implementations such as those we have heard today from Brazil, Indonesia and Saudi Arabia, and of others such as India, Rwanda and South Africa and initiatives under Africa CDC’s Digital Transformation Strategy, to build the DPI Architecture.