Incorporating innovation and digital health to improve quality of care and patient safety

WHO aims to ensure that innovative technologies benefit all individuals, so that they are fair and inclusive and vulnerable groups are not left behind.

Ongoing global health challenges have led to enormous innovations in digital health services and improvements in the quality of digital health services, such as telehealth, which has been a useful alternative and complement for delivering health services recently.

Digital health solutions and the secondary use of health data provide excellent opportunities to build better and more resilient health services while improving quality of care. This is also in line with the recently adopted Digital Health Action Plan. Novel artificial intelligence-based tools can help address prevention, diagnosis, and treatment in health care. They also enable collaboration and learning between countries, institutions, health-care professionals, patients, and communities. However, there are still questions to be raised about how innovation and digital health can improve quality of care and patient safety.

Together with the Digital Health Flagship, the WHO Office for Quality of Care and Patient Safety in Athens (Greece) works with Member States and stakeholders to set the scene for incorporating innovation and digital health interventions into discussions on quality of care and patient safety. It aims to foster partnerships that develop effective strategies to ensure inclusivity and co-create new and sustainable outcomes in improving quality of care and patient safety for all.