Digital health for the End TB Strategy: developing priority products and making them work.

In 2014, the World Health Organization (WHO) developed the End TB Strategy in response to a World Health Assembly Resolution requesting Member States to end the worldwide epidemic of tuberculosis (TB) by 2035. For the strategy's objectives to be realised, the next 20 years will need novel solutions to address the challenges posed by TB to health professionals, and to affected people and communities. Information and communication technology presents opportunities for innovative approaches to support TB efforts in patient care, surveillance, programme management and electronic learning. The effective application of digital health products at a large scale and their continued development need the engagement of TB patients and their caregivers, innovators, funders, policy-makers, advocacy groups, and affected communities.In April 2015, WHO established its Global Task Force on Digital Health for TB to advocate and support the development of digital health innovations in global efforts to improve TB care and prevention. We outline the group's approach to stewarding this process in alignment with the three pillars of the End TB Strategy. The supplementary material of this article includes target product profiles, as developed by early 2016, defining nine priority digital health concepts and products that are strategically positioned to enhance TB action at the country level.

WHO guidance on electronic systems to manage data for tuberculosis care and control.

The World Health Organization (WHO) actively promotes eHealth, which includes electronic health information systems, as means to generate better data on tuberculosis and on interventions to control tuberculosis. However, introducing electronic data management needs long-term investment in both staff and infrastructure and has profound social and organizational impacts. It is easy to make costly mistakes and to lose potential benefit due to poor organizational, technical, or financial planning and unrealistic expectations. The Stop TB Department of WHO in collaboration with technical partners have just released guidance on planning, developing, and managing such systems. The document provides practical advice to decision makers and others involved in tuberculosis control on planning revisions to information systems, whether they are creating new systems or enhancing existing ones. The guide uses examples from eHealth projects recently implemented in Brazil, China, Pakistan and other settings to illustrate how projects in diverse settings have overcome different challenges.