Global health leaders and experts recently adopted 'Delhi Declaration' on digital health for sustainable development, which called for the WHO to establish a specific mechanism to centrally coordinate digital health to assist its member states.

"This Delhi Declaration on digital health firmly aligns with our Prime Minister Narendra Modi's Digital India," Minister of State for Health Ashwini Kumar Choubey said at the concluding session of the '4th Global Digital Health Partnership Summit'.

As part of the high-level summit, the ministers and delegation also adopted the Delhi Declaration on digital health for sustainable development, which called for WHO’s leadership in digital health and for it to establish a specific mechanism to centrally coordinate digital health to assist its Member States.

Inaugurated by Union Minister of Health and Family Welfare J P Nadda along with Union IT Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad, the global intergovernmental meeting on digital health was hosted by the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare in collaboration with World Health Organization (WHO) and the Global Digital Health Partnership (GDHP).

Choubey further stated that the declaration marks India's commitment in maximising the digital health investments to ensure universal health coverage and realise Ayushman Bharat. He further stressed on the need for sharing best practices in digital health among the countries.

Minister of State for Health Anupriya Patel highlighted the initiatives of the government in digital health and said, "Engaging citizens in partnering with the government for planning and management of digital health interventions in health services delivery and improving governance are important."

Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, Director-General, WHO in his live video address shared that, “Digital technologies are not just the latest trend – they are a vital tool for strengthening primary care, achieving universal health coverage, and achieving Sustainable Development Goals.” Speaking on bridging the gap of access to health services, Dr Tedros said, “Telemedicine, remote care and mobile health are helping us transform health industry by delivering care in people’s homes, instead of in hospitals and clinics.”

Ms. Preeti Sudan, Secretary (Health) emphasized on the need make technology accessible so that people can benefit from digital health. “Our vision is to create an integrated digital health platform and have longitudinal electronic health record for 1.3 billion people of India with a view to reduce cost of repeated diagnostics, reduce out of pocket expenditure and ensure precision medication,” she said.