Abstract
The rising incidence of noncommunicable diseases, combined with the costs of mitigating the effects of climate change, sovereign debt, human capital migration and regional conflicts, is undermining global health security and threatening progress towards achieving the sustainable development goals
(SDGs).1,2 The effects of these polycrises are disproportionately borne by low- and middle-income countries, which have the lowest health-care spending, the highest proportions of noncommunicable disease mortality and workforce shortage, and the fastest growth in smartphone use.3,4 A promising and growing response to these issues is health digitalization, which is the integration of smart devices, computers, internet and other digital technologies with health ecosystems. Because many low- and middle-income countries cur-
rently use only a small fraction (around 5%) of their health data,3 health digitalization in low- and middle-income countries in the African Region alone could produce health cost savings of up to 11 billion United States dollars (US$)
(around 15%) by 2030 through more personalized, effective, the reinvestment of billions of cost savings to boost health-care access and outcomes through optimized telehealth (remote patient provider encounters and monitoring); self-care (digital disease prevention, diagnostics and support); paperless data
(electronic health records, staff communication and digitalassistants); and decision-intelligent systems (for clinicians, administrators and payors). As more people connect to the internet of things (that is, the interconnection of digital devices embedded in everyday objects) and the larger global digital
ecosystem (the digital communication network of individuals, institutions, companies and governments), the increased number of users means more data and smarter insights from artificial intelligence (AI). National health systems, including local health-care systems, public health agencies, and part-
nering institutions, companies and governments, are part of this data explosion as health-care records, communications, financing and administration are increasingly digitalized. In 2021, the World Health Organization (WHO) recog-
nized that AI-augmented digital health was a proven accelera tor for improving health outcomes through the SDGs, translating such data into actionable insights for more efficient healthand policy management at the individual, public and global health levels.5,6 The health sector globally is progressively
benefitting from the technological evolution of AI digitalization, accelerated by the intensifying international competition between leading companies and governments.1 Generative AI alone is expected to add more than US$ 10 trillion to the global economy, sufficient to cover the entire cost of global.