Call to Action on Global eHealth Evaluation

soma

Public health professional in the Washington, DC area.

Consensus Statement of the WHO Global eHealth Evaluation Meeting,
Bellagio, September 2011

“Addressing global health challenges requires a sound understanding of the different social, political, economic and environmental factors influencing complex health systems, and exploring appropriate and innovative means to treat disease and promote individual and public health. eHealth can help realize health gains and contribute toward transformational health system change when policies and implementations are informed by rigorous and focused evaluation. Used appropriately, eHealth has the potential to catalyze, support and monitor health improvements at scale, and to accelerate achievement of national and global development goals, including the United Nations Millennium Development Goals. If used improperly, eHealth may divert valuable resources and evencause harm. To ensure effective and appropriate use of eHealth systems, implementation must be guided by evidence from evaluations at all design and scale‐up stages. A small set of studies has shown positive impact of eHealthsolutions in resource‐poor environments but more evidence, of better quality, is needed to make the health and investment case for scale‐up.”

Download the full report attached to this blog post.