Digital Health Strategic Roundtable Workshop, Manila

The Strengthening Standards Capability Project (SSCP) lead partner UP Manila Standards and Interoperability Lab (UPM SILab) in collaboration with the Department of Health (DOH), Philippines, and the Philippine Health Insurance Corporation (PhilHealth), hosted a roundtable workshop to facilitate a collaborative platform for digital health development partners. The primary aim of this platform was to allow partners to share their current work in the Philippines, identify challenges related to standards and interoperability, and explore enablers for creating a connected digital health ecosystem.

The workshop brought together approximately 40 participants from 17 regional and international development partners.

The event commenced with statements of support from Undersecretary and CIO Emmie Perez-Chiong of the DOH, Philippines, and CIO Jovy Aragona of PhilHealth, both of whom acknowledged the partner network and its vital contributions to the digital transformation of healthcare in the country. Undersecretary Chiong also underscored the importance of a coordinated effort to reduce the administrative burden on the government and minimize redundancies across development programs. Both the Undersecretary and CIO visited Brisbane in August as part of the SSCP Study Tour.

In the second half of the workshop, partners collaborated to identify the challenges and enablers for creating a connected healthcare ecosystem in the Philippines. During the closing remarks, Dr Alvin Marcelo, Director of UP Manila SILab, outlined the next steps for continued collaboration through the UPM SILab Community of Practice. He also introduced the SSCP Interoperability FHIR Sandbox as a reference implementation for testing and validating digital health applications, furthering the goal of enhanced interoperability in the Philippines’ digital health infrastructure.