Poster from Transform Health
The Transform Health Coalition hosted five dialogues focused on the goals of the Roadmap to 2030: Health for All in the Digital Age during this year’s Digital Health Week, held on November 3-9, 2025.
The Asia eHealth Information Network (AeHIN) was among the organizations that contributed to the consultation and development of the Roadmap to 2030. The Roadmap outlines a series of goals, ambitions, and actions needed to accelerate digital health transformation over the next five years to achieve universal health coverage by 2030. It offers a flexible, action-oriented framework that countries can adopt and adapt to their specific contexts, guided by the principles of national digital health sovereignty and trust.
The Roadmap to 2030 Dialogues emphasized the importance of political will and putting people at the center of governance. While challenges such as siloed systems and coordination, lack of financial support, and limited community involvement remain, ways to move forward were identified across all dialogues, highlighting the importance of digital transformation in the context of countries in implementing the Roadmap. The dialogues also emphasized that digital transformation involves people and political leadership, not just technology. Building on the public’s trust and meaningful participation, while reinforcing institutional capacity and developing digital infrastructure, would help shape systems and advance digital transformation.
AeHIN Executive Director Jai Ganesh Udayasankaran served as a panelist in three of the five dialogues organized during the week, co-hosted by AeHIN. Each dialogue focused on a foundational pillar of digital health transformation.
Roadmap to 2030 Dialogue 2 – National Policies and Legislation
Co-hosted by UNITE, KELIN, Imara, and AeHIN on November 4, 2025
Udayasankaran shared his reflections on governance, noting that interoperability is a governance issue in itself. Technological innovations outpace existing regulations and legislation. Public consultations take time and consideration, and political will is crucial. Udayasankaran highlighted that regional networks play a role in getting consensus and onboarding the right stakeholders to support countries by engaging the communities of practice. The convergence approach is helpful in countries to engage stakeholders and develop national digital health strategies with resources aligned in the form of a costed blueprint for implementation.
Towards the end of the conversation, Udayasankaran mentioned that, based on AeHIN’s experience, having Universal Health Coverage (UHC) as an overarching theme resonates with many stakeholders, including legislators. Udayasankaran emphasized the need to retain focus on health while planning and putting in place digital enablers to extend and enhance the reach and quality of healthcare services, which form key components of UHC. Having UHC as a goal or theme brings stakeholders together to coordinate, collaborate, and converge, which “can be a way of getting around the issue of having these policies and legislation that are probably not in the current era to get to support the evolving developments in the digital space,” he concluded.
Roadmap to 2030 Dialogue 3 – Resourcing and Investment
Co-hosted by G20&G7, AeHIN, UNICEF, and OECD on November 5, 2025
Question from the moderator: You work very much on supporting governments and others on the technical side with strategies. How have you experienced the common context, and how do you see the future in relation to resourcing and investment for digital health?
Udayasankaran agreed that countries often face challenges and constraints in resourcing and sustaining investments in digital health.
While the adoption and acceptance of digital health services have grown and become widespread, the expectation that they can deliver results in a short span of time can be unrealistic. Udayasankaran then stated that investing in foundational building blocks takes more time, effort, and resources, but once these are in place, the return on investment might be well realized over the years. He also shared that AeHIN is seeing a shift in countries: they are exploring how to leverage their own resources, develop their local ecosystem, rather than relying heavily on donor or partner funding.
AeHIN’s work with countries through Convergence Workshop methodologies helps involve multistakeholders within countries. With supporting partners, not only through financial means but also by developing the capacities and capabilities of the health ICT workforce to produce digitally skilled and trained human resources to perform tasks. Udayasankaran added that AeHIN, as a regional digital health network, focuses on building capacity through peer learning, experience sharing, and planning support to optimize scarce resources. Among the ways to assist countries in their national digital health mission is to help align their digital health strategies with priorities in health strategies, support capacity-building and ensure technical assistance that are relevant for the country’s context and sustainable. These might include support towards preparation of an implementation roadmap that is costed (on a total cost of ownership) for at least five to 10 years.
Roadmap to 2030 Dialogue 4 – National Leadership, Management, and Coordination
Co-hosted by PATH, AeHIN, Tupa Bloom Care, and Fundapi on November 6, 2025
Question from the Moderator: What does leadership mean for you, whose leadership in particular?
Udayasankaran reaffirmed the importance of national leadership and accountability in digital health. He then mentioned that resilience of strategies and continuity in leadership are both essential. National digital health programs might be impacted during political transitions. Investments in digital health might take time to yield tangible results. Political transitions and changes in leadership might impact both the efforts undertaken and investments made over the years.
Udayasankaran cited the Mind the GAPS Framework, containing fundamental areas that can help country leaders identify the ‘gaps’ in their governance, architecture, people and program management, and standards and interoperability. The framework can help bridge gaps through concerted, continuous effort, and national digital health programs can achieve successful implementation. The Working Council members of AeHIN from 14 countries convened in 2023 to lay out specific actions for GAPS 2.0. The framework can help address issues in governance by institutionalizing a sustainable, inclusive, and resilient digital health governance mechanism in countries and by examining what it takes to address the challenges. In terms of architecture, implementing an integrated, standardized, and costed digital health blueprint aligned with the national health vision and strategy. When it comes to people and program management, a dedicated unit with a clearly defined set of terms of reference (ToR) will ensure that there are people responsible and accountable for taking action and addressing issues in a timely manner.
In summary, coordination, cooperation, and convergence are required for coherent digital transformation across political transitions and associated changes that might impact governance of national digital health programs. Long-term political commitment is crucial, program management units have a critical function to play, and ToRs must be clearly written down to ensure continuity and resilience amidst transitions.
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