“As digital technologies become widespread in our lives, they have enormous potential to influence health and wellbeing. To get the most out of them, we need a new form of innovation focused on those who face the toughest barriers.”
Susan Etlinger writes in the Financial Times that health tech innovation must benefit all
A result of the global health pandemic is that data about our health is being collected at an exponential rate, which has benefits for the public good but also threats to privacy. As a member of The Lancet and Financial Times Commission on Governing Health Futures 2030: Growing Up in a Digital World, former CIGI President Rohinton P. Medhora led work focused on reforming health data systems to be equitable and patient centred. One “powerful idea” from the commission was to promote “a new ‘data solidarity’ — in essence, a reframing of big data and its digital technologies as social goods, rather than as mere technical instruments,” as Medhora noted in the Toronto Star with University of Waterloo President Vivek Goel.
CIGI also hosted, with the University of Waterloo, a major conference to explore the intersection between health data, digital health and improved public health outcomes.