TY - JOUR T1 - Digital Health and Health Systems of the Future JF - Global Health: Science and Practice JO - GLOB HEALTH SCI PRACT SP - S1 LP - S4 DO - 10.9745/GHSP-D-18-00342 VL - 6 IS - Supplement 1 AU - Alain Labrique AU - Lavanya Vasudevan AU - Garrett Mehl AU - Ellen Rosskam AU - Adnan A. Hyder Y1 - 2018/10/10 UR - http://www.ghspjournal.org/content/6/Supplement_1/S1.abstract N2 - Digital strategies have been formally recognized as a critical health systems strengthening strategy to help meet the Sustainable Development Goals and universal health coverage targets. This landscaping collection reviews multiple possible approaches across health system pillars, from digital referrals to decision support systems, identifying key knowledge gaps across these domains and recognizing the growth needed in the field to realize its full potential.Over a decade ago, the emergence of mobile phone networks across the globe presented a novel opportunity for rapid improvement in global health. Although health system challenges were not important drivers of this global mobile network proliferation, the public health and clinical community rapidly recognized the potential of mobile phones to tackle many immense challenges experienced by health systems, including early diagnosis, access to care, and equitable provision of services.1 This technology revolution soon became recognized as a way to connect health workers to the people they serve; capture health information, even in hard-to-reach areas; and compress the time between a crisis and an appropriate response.2 As is discussed in the opening article of this special issue, the past 10 to 15 years have been characterized by different periods in the evolution of the emergent field of “mHealth”—the common term used to describe mobile phone technologies used in public health or clinical medicine—or digital health, which is our preferred term.Initially a wide field of discordant experimentation, in the past 5 years digital health has seen an unprecedented convergence on a shared vocabulary,3 common tools, and, importantly, principles to guide the selection, implementation, and evaluation of digital innovations. Inspired but also frustrated by the ‘wild west’ character of mHealth innovation, atypical alliances of donors, innovators, governments, and the private sector have emerged in support of common objectives. These alliances and innovations were principally driven … ER -