Digital Public Infrastructure (DPI) has demonstrated transformative potential across sectors, including health. Mapping user journeys for key stakeholders (such as patients, healthcare providers, and health system managers) reveals the pivotal role that DPIs can play in improving critical functions within global health systems such as care service discovery, continuity of care, remote consultations, outbreak management, etc. Recognising the value, efforts have been made around the globe to build DPIs for health. This includes India’s Ayushman Bharat Digital Health Mission (ABDM), Europe’s eHealth Digital Service Infrastructure (eHDSI), Brazil’s National Health Data Network, etc. Maturity level of these initiatives varies across geographies and also present different types of challenges. This includes underdeveloped technical capabilities in Africa, lack of enabling regulations, standards and interoperability in Asia and Latin American countries.

The policy brief proposes a set of recommendations for the G20, focusing on a common assessment framework for design and implementation of DPI for health, that address these challenges. It recommends assisting countries in building technical capacity as well as multilateral arrangements for monitoring progress across countries.