The Asia eHealth Information Network Governing Committee (AeHIN GC) and secretariat gathered for a strategic meeting at Wyndham Casablanca Hotel in Jakarta, Indonesia, on January 23, 2023.

Dr. Alvin Marcelo, AeHIN’s Executive Director (ED) since 2015, opened the meeting with a review of AeHIN’s 10-year report. He presented AeHIN’s body of work in the first decade which focused on understanding the network’s needs (Mind the GAPS) and expressed opportunities in engaging civil society and governments to work together in their digital health efforts (Fill the GAPS).

After confirming the commitment of the AeHIN Governing Committee (GC) to continue serving, Dr. Marcelo expressed his intention to step down as ED to focus on his work in the Philippines. Dr. Boonchai Kijsanayotin (Thailand), Dr. Fazilah Shaik Allaudin (Malaysia), Jai Ganesh Udayasankaran (India), and Anis Fuad (Indonesia) accepted this and declared the position vacant.

After deliberations, Jai Ganesh Udayasankaran was selected as the next AeHIN Executive Director with Dr. Boonchai as Chair and Dr. Marcelo as Treasurer of AeHIN effective February 1, 2023. Dr. Kijsanayotin will continue as Chair of AeHIN and signified that a new Chair should be selected in the next two to three years. The changes opened the discussion to prioritize the network’s transition planning and how to engage the AeHIN Working Council (WC) further.

The GC and secretariat moved to revise AeHIN’s vision and mission and strategies into the following:

Vision: Strengthened interoperable digital health ecosystem for better health in Asia

Mission: Promote learning, resource sharing and knowledge exchange to strengthen digital health through the networking approach

Strategies:

  • Promote leadership and governance for digital health
  • Facilitate capacity-building for digital health
  • Create opportunities for knowledge exchange and resource sharing
  • Enable interoperability through standards

Later into the meeting, the group did a SWOT analysis, planned for the upcoming mini convergence workshop in Indonesia, and discussed AeHIN partnerships and 2023 activities.