G20 releases report on digital health interventions for pandemic

The first G20 report in the area of digital health was released. The Report on Digital Health Implementation Approach to Pandemic Management outlines the digital health emergency response landscape and puts forward actions and implementation recommendations. The G20 Digital Health Taskforce was established during the Saudi Arabian G20 presidency in order to strengthen international collaboration on leveraging digital health interventions. In light of the COVID-19 pandemic in April 2020, the taskforce began tackling the pandemic challenge by bringing 17 countries and international organisations (e.g. WHO, ITU, OECD, etc.) together to explore mechanisms to champion the digital health interventions for the current pandemic response. 

The report provides the basic blueprint for countries to use digital health interventions for emergencies and in future and supports countries to choose information and tools applicable to each country’s health situation, existing regulations, and digital maturity. The report presented 11 recommendations that have been raised for future work, including (a) supporting countries documenting digital health maturity in key ‘building blocks’ areas, such as leadership and governance; (b) support international collaboration of countries in developing data standards and interoperability specifications for all types of surveillance; and (c) supporting open source digital health applications to be compliant with interoperability standards and specifications.