Cost-effectiveness and cost-utility of a digital technology-driven hierarchical healthcare screening pattern in China.

Utilization of digital technologies for cataract screening in primary care is a potential solution for addressing the dilemma between the growing aging population and unequally distributed resources. Here, we propose a digital technology-driven hierarchical screening (DH screening) pattern implemented in China to promote the equity and accessibility of healthcare. It consists of home-based mobile artificial intelligence (AI) screening, community-based AI diagnosis, and referral to hospitals. We utilize decision-analytic Markov models to evaluate the cost-effectiveness and cost-utility of different cataract screening strategies (no screening, telescreening, AI screening and DH screening). A simulated cohort of 100,000 individuals from age 50 is built through a total of 30 1-year Markov cycles. The primary outcomes are incremental cost-effectiveness ratio and incremental cost-utility ratio. The results show that DH screening dominates no screening, telescreening and AI screening in urban and rural China. Annual DH screening emerges as the most economically effective strategy with 341 (338 to 344) and 1326 (1312 to 1340) years of blindness avoided compared with telescreening, and 37 (35 to 39) and 140 (131 to 148) years compared with AI screening in urban and rural settings, respectively. The findings remain robust across all sensitivity analyses conducted. Here, we report that DH screening is cost-effective in urban and rural China, and the annual screening proves to be the most cost-effective option, providing an economic rationale for policymakers promoting public eye health in low- and middle-income countries.

La transformación digital y su papel en la reactivación con transformación económica y del empleo en América Latina y el Caribe post COVID-19 / Digital transformation and its role in the reactivation with economic and employment transformation in Latin America and the Caribbean post COVID-19

Este artículo argumenta que la transformación digital, y la correspondiente computación en la nube, puede ayudar no solo a la reconstrucción y reparación de los daños de la pandemia, sino a reducir el legado de brechas y trampas del desarrollo que caracterizan a los países de la región, porque ofrece muchas oportunidades de acelerar la productividad, el empleo de calidad, la competitividad de las PYMES, las capacidades del talento humano, el suministro de servicios públicos, la innovación, el mejoramiento de los sistemas de salud, y en general, el bienestar de la población. El futuro es digital, y entre más se tarden los países en aumentar no solo el acceso sino el uso inteligente y masivo de las oportunidades de la nueva economía digital, más retrasarán el aprovechamiento de sus enormes beneficios, incluyendo la posibilidad de escapar de las cuatro trampas del desarrollo en que se encuentra la región, que de manera muy útil y acertada identificó el Reporte de Perspectivas Económicas de América Latina 2019: 2 la trampa de la productividad, la trampa de la vulnerabilidad social, la trampa de las bajas capacidades institucionales y la trampa ambiental. Todas las cuales están relacionadas con la bien conocida "trampa del ingreso medio"

Accelerating the journey to self-reliance through strategic investments in digital technologies: a digital-health vision for action from the U.S. Agency for International Development

This Digital-Health Vision for Action charts a course to sharpen the investments in digital technologies by the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) to unlock significant gains for health institutions, health workers, citizens, and host governments in low- and middleincome countries (LMIC) alike. Consistent with USAID's Digital Strategy, the goal of this Vision is to move the Agency beyond an era of funding characterized by fragmented pilots and siloed, program­specific information-technology systems, and toward a future shaped by investments in health strategies led and managed at the country level, and in systems that host governments and their local partners can operate, expand, and sustain independently over time. This Vision, and the strategic shift in approach it signals, is essential to enabling the Journey to SelfReliance1 in USAID's partner countries in a digitally enabled 21st century

High-level meeting on information systems for health: The Caribbean Information System for Health 7-8 November 2016, Kingston, Jamaica

The Pan American Health Organization/World Health Organization (PAHO/WHO) and the Ministry of Health (MoH) Jamaica collaborated to convene a High-Level Meeting (HLM) on Information Systems for Health (IS4H) in Kingston, Jamaica, 7-8 November 2016