Digital health and innovation
The use and scale up of digital health solutions can revolutionize how people worldwide achieve higher standards of health, and access services to promote and protect their health and well-being.
Digital health provides opportunities to accelerate our progress in attaining health and well-being related Sustainable Development Goal (SDGs), especially SDG 3, and achieving our triple billion targets for 2023 as articulated in its Thirteenth General Programme of Work (GPW13).
WHO has a three-tier approach to digital health delivery.
- Policymakers – Support decision-makers at the local, regional and national level to ensure the sustainable, safe and ethical use of technology.
- Practitioners – Facilitate the capacity for practitioners to use digital technologies to deliver healthcare benefits effectively.
- Population – Improve the health and well-being of people, with the interventions of digital health.
WHO will focus on enabling countries to plan, adopt, and benefit from seamless and secure technologies that provide effective clinical and public health solutions to accelerate the achievement of the health and well-being related SDGs. This means leaving no one behind – children or adults, rural or urban, with digital solutions to improve their health and well-being.
Accessing the right information, when you need it, in the palm of your hand is at the heart of this WHO-ITU initiative. In support of national governments, Be He@lthy, Be Mobile is helping millions of people quit tobacco, control diabetes and cervical cancer, help people at risk of asthma and COPD, and care for older persons.
Early detection of hearing loss is crucial for its effective rehabilitation. The hearWHO app gives the general public access to a hearing screener to check their hearing status and monitor it over time.
WHO is working with Google to share health advice through new and innovative platforms. This is part of WHO's broader ambition to work closely with the digital world to promote and protect the health of all people. Through the Google Fit app, WHO is reaching more people with its recommendations on physical activity, and showing why moving more is good for health.