Invitation
to Workshop on Data
Revolution, Health Status Transformation and the Role of Artificial Intelligence
for Health and Pandemic Preparedness in the African Context,
21-24 June 2021, Virtual
Digital health through technologies such as Artificial Intelligence (AI) have the potential to offer new insights and tools, improve decision making and predictive analytics for health emergency preparedness. It also enables the mitigation of workforce shortages, the development of tailored programs, brings efficiencies to health service delivery and addresses multiple challenges that include strengthening underlying digital infrastructure and digital health systems.
Globally, the COVID-19 pandemic has triggered an unprecedented demand for digital technology solutions in screening populations, tracking infections and minimizing direct human contact. The use of different technologies at every step has brought efficiencies in tracking and tracing contacts, testing and in case management. Most importantly, technology has played and continues to play a vital role in protecting medical personnel by limiting direct contact with patients, disinfecting controlled environments and disseminating public health and emergency messages.
By leveraging the use of digital technology in Africa in the health sector, different health crises can be managed better and health care systems strengthened through effective and more efficient digital mechanisms.
In this context, ITU and WHO with the support of USAID are co-organising this workshop to bring together policy makers, technical experts, academia, private sector innovators, among others, to discuss critical policy dimensions of strengthening digital health ecosystems and lay the foundation for responsibly developing and adopting innovations such as AI in African health systems. This will be a technical workshop that precedes a high level Ministerial meeting during which the findings from this workshop will be presented.
During the workshop, participants will discuss the latest advances in digital technology, AI tools and techniques with key considerations for their development and use in the African context, particularly during times of health emergencies and beyond as underscored by COVID-19. It will also aim to identify concrete actions to shape policy and enabling environments to foster digital technology, showcase AI driven innovative solutions for health that have been developed, share best practises that can be adopted, discuss issues of finance to support digital transformation and strengthen economies for sustainability.
