Makati, Philippines – The World Bank, in collaboration with the Asia eHealth Information Network (AeHIN), organized the first regional-level ‘Digital Health Blueprint Toolkit Bootcamp’ from November 4 to 6, 2025. The three-day bootcamp brought together 54 digital health experts from government, academia, and the private sector across 20 countries to participate in a facilitator training for the World Bank Digital Health Blueprint Toolkit. In addition to building capacity to facilitate the Blueprint process, this event created a community of digital health experts who can support their countries in designing and implementing state- and national-level digital health architectures. 

The Digital Health Blueprint Toolkit, developed by the World Bank, is a comprehensive set of customizable resources designed to help country governments move from digital health strategy to implementation by focusing on the development of buildable blueprints contextualized to country health priorities. 

Messages of support 

Dr. Albert Domingo, Chief Information Officer at the Department of Health, Philippines, officially opened the bootcamp by highlighting the importance of blueprints and incorporating the realities of a country’s context to make them useful. He concluded that the value of the bootcamp lies in establishing benchmarks to help countries move forward and turn their digital health blueprint into something tangible. 

Toni Joe Lebbos, a Health Economist at the World Bank, discussed the World Bank’s support for country digital health investments, infrastructure, connectivity, and interoperability. He stated that the bootcamp discussions will have concrete implications to align in-country partners behind a common strategy for digital transformation. 

Matthew Hulse, Senior Health Specialist & Global Digital Health Focal Point at the World Bank, shared an overview of the toolkit and the rationale behind its development: to operationalize financing for digital health, enabling digital transformation and its associated goals for people-centered health care. 

Jai Ganesh Udayasankaran, Executive Director of AeHIN, noted that capacity building in digital health is a continuous process, not a one-time effort, especially given the pace of developments happening. He emphasized that capacity-building initiatives achieve greater impact when participants apply the skills and tools they learn, thereby strengthening the ecosystem and aligning demand-supply dynamics to ensure sustainability. 

Bootcamp highlights 

Based on the pre-bootcamp survey from participants representing 20 countries, 70% of the countries have not yet implemented the blueprint. Overall, half of the countries are either in the very early stages of development or have not started at all. This underscores the potential of this bootcamp to guide participants in accelerating their blueprint development process. 

Several countries are facing challenges in establishing Health Information Exchange (HIE) while dealing with legacy systems and limited adoption of national standards. The Day 1 session on HIE infrastructure and the Day 2 session on HIE building blocks provided useful insights and discussions on these issues and highlighted the importance of ensuring the involvement of the private sector. 

The Day 2 session on implementation science emphasized the need to strengthen governance, including setting up a Technical Working Group (TWG).  The participants wanted guidance on how to establish and operationalize a TWG with specific interests in areas such as the identification of optimal composition of stakeholders, and the development of clear Terms of Reference for the TWG. In response to these queries, the facilitators highlighted the importance of utilizing available tools and methodologies such as the AeHIN’s convergence workshop approach and the Program Management component of AeHIN’s GAPS Framework. 

The Day 3 session on investment rationale introduced the participants to a spreadsheet template that can assist countries in developing a costed plan, which is a critical component of a blueprint. Participants showed interest to learn the logic behind the formulas and automated calculations used in the template. Some participants also noted that having a deeper understanding of this logic will assist them in better contextualization of the tool to fit their country’s needs.  

The three-day bootcamp served as a platform to help participants contextualize their national digital health planning, review key considerations for investment planning, and gather additional insights to clearly articulate country needs to TWGs. Overall, the modules aimed to translate health priorities and needs into costed and buildable digital health blueprints. 

Community Engagement 

The bootcamp concluded with an invitation from AeHIN to the participants to join the Community of Practice (CoP). Joining the CoP would allow participants to remain engaged in peer-learning, experience sharing, and reaching out to the community for support. Being able to discuss challenges, provide updates on developments related to digital health blueprint implementations, share opportunities for continuing professional development, and connect with international experts in the community might help co-create, collaborate, and expedite efforts to find solutions to the challenges faced. 

Feedback from Participants 

Feedback was obtained using a post-survey, which had an 83% response rate (n = 45/54). All in all, the participants rated their overall experience at the bootcamp 4.47 out of 5. 

 “Great opportunity to unpack the toolkit among peers and see what has worked and has not. The toolkit provides a good starting point and a common language for stakeholders.”

“Three days is a bit overwhelming to go through everything.”

“….A slightly longer format or more spaced-out sessions may allow for deeper reflection and discussion.”

“Honestly, I did not expect it to be this good and effective. It did answer the elephant in the room type questions. Glad the toolkit talks about the big picture, long-term view.”

Several important feedback and insights from the participants were obtained during the bootcamp sessions as well. Some of these takeaways include: 

  • The need to have guidance  on the establishment and operationalization of  Technical Working Groups.  
  • The need to spend more time post this bootcamp to familiarize with the contents including the investment planning template and to contextualize the content and templates before they implement the toolkit in their countries.  
  • The importance of investing in the right infrastructure and human resource requirements for the country 
  • Having a platform for countries at different stages of implementation to share their experiences, discuss challenges and find solutions. 
  • The importance of incorporating AI in the blueprint even if the country is at an early stage of digitalization.  

The World Bank and AeHIN, together with the soon-to-be-launched Digital Health Blueprint Toolkit Community of Practice, will continue to collaborate to further enhance the toolkit and help participants implement it in advancing the national digital health architectures in the region.