Digital technology is transforming health systems. Digital solutions and data play a crucial role in improving service delivery, financing, health outcomes, and expanding access. For large populous nations, it is particularly important to build digital health platforms that can serve as a central hub, linking together otherwise disparate and unconnected data systems. India, Indonesia and Nigeria—with populations of 1.4 billion, 281 million and 227 million respectively—are rising to the challenges of siloed data systems and in doing so are making greater progress towards universal health coverage.
Experts from the three countries presented insights from their health system transformations at a knowledge sharing event titled Three Giants Go Digital: Insights from India, Indonesia, and Nigeria's Digital Transformation and Data Governance Journey. The session was held on January 28, 2025 in the margins of the Prince Mahidol Award Conference) in Bangkok, Thailand.
Each country is at a different stage in its digital journey. India’s Ayushman Bharat Digital Mission (ABDM) aims to build an integrated data health ecosystem that is the foundation for its universal citizen-centered healthcare scheme. ABDM builds the backbone needed for an integrated digital health infrastructure, bridging gaps among diverse stakeholders through digital pathways.
Indonesia’s SATUSEHAT is a platform that integrates and standardizes the country’s health data services. It transforms health services through digitization that improves data connectivity, analysis, and service delivery. SATUSEHAT’s suite of software and applications, including a mobile version, allows secure usage of official health data, not only by government agencies but also private individuals. Wherever fully in use, patients do not need to fill in new forms when they transfer from one health facitlity to another. Hospital medical records are documented in a digital system with the data owner’s consent.
The Nigeria Health in Digital Initiative addresses significant data fragmentation, aiming for unified electronic medical record systems to improve data sharing and policy decision support. It aims to enhance accessibility, efficiency, and quality of healthcare services across the country. Nigeria is doing this by digitizing its healthcare system through electronic medical records and data exchange systems that will improve healthcare access, empower data-driven decision-making, and enable cost-effective service delivery.
Though the three countries face vastly different contexts and circumstances, their digital journeys brought them face-to-face with similar challenges—data protection, fragmented data, unstandardized data quality, the capacity of teams, and limited infrastructure. They are also dealing with issues of privacy, patient rights, and the ethical use of personal health data.
PMAC is an annual international conference for global public health leaders to discuss high priority health issues and propose concrete solutions. The theme of PMAC 2025 was Harnessing Technologies in an Age of AI to Build a Healthier World. The Advance Universal Health Coverage multi-donor trust fund supported the running of this knowledge event, including the participation of delegates from Indonesia.