Islamabad:Globesight and the Pakistan Digital Authority (PDA) convened a technical working session, titled “Sharing Regional Experiences on the Digital Health Pathway,” bringing together government and private-sector stakeholders from Pakistan with regional healthcare experts from Bangladesh, Indonesia, and Sri Lanka to exchange lessons on digital health and integrated primary healthcare.
The session was held as PDA advances work on Pakistan’s Digital Health Sectoral Plan and consults stakeholders on practical pathways for integrating Digital Public Infrastructure (DPI) into priority health areas under the Unified National Health Framework. The discussion provided an opportunity to complement Pakistan’s ongoing efforts with regional experiences of designing and implementing integrated health systems, particularly around digital infrastructure, interoperability, data use, and primary healthcare delivery.
“We have three distinct questions we hope to have explored with our regional peers by the end of our technical session today: what are the absolute non-negotiables for reaching genuine health systems interoperability; what are some of the early pitfalls that have derailed national digital health programs in your national experiences; and finally, how do we ensure our digital architecture directly translates into actually improved health delivery and services?,” said M J Sear, Vice Chairperson in his opening remarks.
Regional experts shared experiences from their respective health systems, including Indonesia’s Integrated Primary Healthcare (ILP) model, which has expanded from nine pilot sites to approximately 86% national coverage through interoperable digital systems. Discussions also drew on experiences from Bangladesh’s digital integration of its union primary health units and Sri Lanka’s incorporation of doctors into its health data review systems.
Dr. Widyaretna Buenastuti, Director, Inke Maris & Associates, Indonesia, added that “From Indonesia’s experience with expanding its Satu Sehat program nation-wide, we have learned that it’s great to have a national-level policy on health digitalization, with various levels of government and service providers eager to connect into one consolidated system.
