Why this course?

Description

Digital Health is defined as a broad umbrella term encompassing eHealth (which includes mHealth), as well as emerging areas, such as the use of advanced computing sciences in ‘big data’, genomics and artificial intelligence. Digital Health is understood to mean “the field of knowledge and practice associated with any aspect of adopting digital technologies to improve health, from inception to operation”.

The term digital health is rooted in eHealth, which is defined as “the use of information and communications technology in support of health and health-related fields”. Mobile health (mHealth) is a subset of eHealth and is defined as “the use of mobile wireless technologies for public health”.

Digital health interventions are applied within a country context and a health system, and their implementation is made possible by a number of factors. These include (i) the health domain area and associated content; (ii) the digital intervention itself (i.e. the functionality provided); (iii) the hardware, software and communication channels for delivering the digital health intervention; and mediated within (iv) a foundational layer of the ICT and enabling environment, characterized by the country infrastructure, leadership and governance, strategy and investment, legislation and policy compliance, workforce, standards and interoperability, and common services and other applications.

Goal of the Programme

The goal of the Certificate Programme in Digital Health from Adheyan is to introduce to students how to lead digital health projects in public health and healthcare sector.

Learning Objectives

Upon completing this course, the student will be expected to:

• Understand the basic premises of Digital Health Interventions
• Value the role of Digital Literacy and Health Data Literacy for diverse Digital Health applications
• Learn how to navigate the Web for applying public health informatics

Learning outcomes –

On successful completion of this subject, students should be able to:

• Understand the fundamentals of digital health in a public health and healthcare setting
• Know how to become health data literate
• Apply Innovation Thinking towards Digital Health

Literature:

1. World Health Organization, WHO guideline: recommendations on digital interventions for health system strengthening. Geneva: World Health Organization; 2019. Licence: CC BY-NC-SA 3.0 IGO. https://www.who.int/reproductivehealth/publications/digital-interventions-health-system-strengthening/en/
2. World Health Organization, Classification of Digital Health Interventions v1.0, 2018, Available from: https://apps.who.int/iris/bitstream/handle/10665/260480/WHO-RHR-18.06-eng.pdf
3. World Health Organization, Draft Global Strategy on Digital Health 2020-2025, 2020, Available from: https://www.who.int/docs/default-source/documents/gs4dhdaa2a9f352b0445bafbc79ca799dce4d.pdf
4. National Health Portal, Ministry of Health and Family Welfare, Government of India. EHR Standards 2016. https://www.nhp.gov.in/ehr‑standards‑helpdesk_ms  
5. Ministry of Health and Family Welfare, Government of India, National Digital Health Blueprint, 2019, Available from: https://main.mohfw.gov.in/sites/default/files/Final%20NDHB%20report_0.pdf (A compressed version is available at: https://main.mohfw.gov.in/sites/default/files/Final%20Report%20-%20Lite%20Version.pdf )
6. Ministry of Health and Family Welfare, Government of India, Telemedicine Practice Guidelines: https://www.mohfw.gov.in/pdf/Telemedicine.pdf
7. The Gazette of India, Government of India, dated 14^th May 2020: http://egazette.nic.in/WriteReadData/2020/219374.pdf
8. Sarbadhikari SN, The Role of Standards for Digital Health and Health Information Management, JBCR, 2019, 6(1):1: https://jbcr.net.in/JBCR-VOL-6-issue-1-2019-20/current-issues-volume-VI-issue-1-1.html 
9. Sarbadhikari SN, Digital Health in India – as envisaged by the National Health Policy (2017), Guest Editorial, BLDE University Journal of Health Sciences, 2019, 4: 1-6.
10. National Digital Health Mission, National Digital Health Mission: https://ndhm.gov.in/