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Please let me start by saying thank you to the Ministry of Health for organizing this Health Partnership Group meeting on the important and exciting topic of digital health.
Advances in technology have enormous potential to help Viet Nam improve health and human development, by contributing to the development of a more resilient and effective health system.
For example, digital technology including AI also has the potential to revolutionise diagnosis and even early detection of disease and disease outbreaks, in ways we cannot even begin to imagine yet.
Digital technology can help improve grassroots health services for the management of both noncommunicable and infectious diseases, by making services more accessible through telemedicine, mobile health applications and web-based services.
Just a few months ago I had the privilege of visiting Nghe An province, to see first-hand the benefits of the work WHO is doing in partnership with VAAC and community-based service providers, to pilot a digital platform that allows people to request self-testing for HIV.
Through using digital technology to provide an additional option for people to access HIV testing, we are seeing more people getting testing for HIV among groups who have not been reached by other programmes – and in doing so getting more people who do test positive onto treatment.
These are the kinds of opportunities made possible by digital health, that will help Viet Nam achieve its big public health goals and build the health system it needs for the future.
And so, it is really a very exciting time to be discussing digital health, as the Government – under the leadership of General Secretary To Lam – has put digital transformation at the heart of its own reform and development agenda.
But at the same time as digital health brings huge opportunities, it also carries risks.
Shortly we will hear about countries’ experiences in dealing with the opportunities and risks of digital health in more detail from our keynote speaker and my colleague, Dr Jeremy Farrar, WHO’s Chief Scientist.
But first, I would like to briefly touch on two risks to consider, and ways to address these risks.
The first is that gaps in access to digital technology can exacerbate existing health and other inequities.
Digital heath tools are only useful if we can access them, and we know how to use them.
For example, telemedicine has great potential to benefit a person with hypertension and/or diabetes living in a remote or hard-to-reach area, but only if that person actually has access to those possibilities – and the digital skills to be able to use them.
So, we need to guard against a future where the rollout of digital technologies actually widens the gap between that person and others – both by improving digital health literacy, as well as by ensuring digital technology reaches the people who stand to benefit from it the most.
A second area of risk is in the tricky area of data privacy and cybersecurity.
Without strong privacy and data security protections in place, people will not trust digital health – but building trust in digital health is fundamental to its adoption.
We will only be able to successfully implement digital health tools and tackle digital inequalities if patients, communities and health workers believe their data is safe and secure.
So, like every country trying to keep up with rapidly evolving digital technology, in Viet Nam we will need to balance privacy, security and national governance in the legal frameworks covering digital health.
To manage these and other risks, and ensure the potential of digital health for improving health can be realized, we need an enabling environment, grounded in strong governance – including a robust regulatory framework, clear policies, and the stewardship to implement the transformation ethically, safely, securely and equitably.
A successful digital health transformation will also require listening to the voices of patients and other service users, health-care workers, health leaders and policy makers across different agencies, and then collaborating across sectors and partners to implement it.
In all of this, WHO is of course proud to accompany Viet Nam on this very exciting agenda, including through support for policy development, as well as facilitating dialogue on some of the more challenging issues I’ve just described – as we are doing here today.
I am sure that Viet Nam can also count on the support of the international and other partners represented here today.
So thank you again to Minister Lan and all of you for being here, and I’m looking forward to today’s discussions – and the many discussions that I am sure will follow after today – about how we guard against some of the perils of digital technology, while at the same time making the most of their promise for a safer, healthier Viet Nam.
Xin cảm ơn!