DTH-Lab holds its inaugural event at the World Health Summit
At the annual World Health Summit in Berlin, the Digital Transformations for Health Lab (DTH-Lab) held its first public event to introduce partners to its work and establish opportunities for closer collaboration.
Over 50 representatives of academia, research, private sector, international organizations and youth networks came together in Berlin to hear about the DTH-Lab’s vision and priorities and to discuss how the Lab’s work complements that of other actors in the digital health ecosystem.
Entitled, “Governing the Digital Transformations for Health: Building an Ecosystem for Public Value” the event confirmed the importance of coordinated action to ensure that digital transformations are rooted in health and health-related values. Participants, including representatives from the Bertelsmann Stiftung, PharmAccess Foundation, World Health Organisation, World Bank, HealthAI, Transform Health and Fondation Botnar were united in wanting to see the potential of digital technologies and data fully harnessed for health equity and public value, and in bringing young people’s voices to the forefront of digital transformations of health.
Read the report of the launch event which includes excerpts from partners’ interventions and explains the significance of the DTH-Lab’s launch within the wider landscape of global health and digitalization. You can also watch highlights from the event in the video below.
The DTH-Lab was established earlier this year to take forward recommendations of The Lancet and Financial Times Commission on Governing Health Futures 2030: Growing up in a digital world. The Commission’s co-chairs, Professors Ilona Kickbusch and Anurag Agrawal—who, along with other former commissioners are leading the DTH-Lab—explained that the Lab will focus on driving change in three areas to improve the health and well-being of young people and future generations: enacting value-based governance of digital transformations and data; putting youth at the centre of digital first health systems and addressing the digital determinants of health.
The DTH-Lab will turn the Commission’s recommendations into concrete initiatives through the establishment of a global consortium of partners to experiment and test ideas and policy solutions.
Download a brief introduction to the DTH-Lab to learn more about priorities and how it will achieve its vision for 2030 that digital transformations of health are led by Health for All values and enable digital first health systems to deliver equitable benefits for the health, wellbeing and safety of young people and their communities.
One such initiative is the creation of a new tool for advancing data solidarity. During the DTH-Lab launch, a team from the University of Vienna, a DTH-Lab partner organisation, presented PLUTO, an open online tool for assessing the public value of data use. Read more about PLUTO here.
Collaboration, partnership and youth leadership are core pillars of the DTH-Lab. The event demonstrated that these same values are shared by many actors in the digital health ecosystem. This enthusiasm and shared mission are set to result in many exciting new initiatives to address digital divides and co-create better health futures.
