While COVID-19 continues to challenge health systems in the Middle East and around the world, it is also prompting the acceleration of their digital transformation. Nations that had strategically invested in health IT prior to the pandemic often demonstrated the strongest responses, leaving behind those who had failed to keep up. Unleashing the power of digital health is clearly key to promoting national and cross-border data collaborations, sharing real-time evidence with clinicians and citizens, mitigating health systems’ vulnerabilities, maintaining the provision of quality care in critical settings, and enabling a more precise and effective ecosystem response to future pandemics. Convening leading global health and technology experts, this session will share visions for how the world can unite in harnessing the power of digital to predict, prevent and manage future health crises.

Learning objectives:

• Learn from renowned experts from the Middle East and elsewhere about digital health’s role in the COVID-19 response.

• Analyse the challenges presented to health systems in leveraging digital support to more efficiently predict, contain and manage future health crises.

• Consider what we can learn from COVID-19 to harness data, tech and the digital more broadly to better prepare for future health emergencies