To support the responsible integration of digital technologies and artificial intelligence (AI) into health systems across the Western Pacific Region, the Division of Data, Strategy and Innovation (DSI) at the WHO Regional Office for the Western Pacific convened a Leadership Forum “Building Synergies for Digital Health and Generative AI to realize Precision Public Health in Asia” on 15 July 2025. Held as a pre-conference event to the Precision Public Health Asia 2025 Conference, the Forum was co-organized with the Precision Public Health Society, the Ministry of Health Malaysia, and Monash University Malaysia.
The one-day meeting brought together 40 participants, including policymakers and regulators from six Southeast Asian countries (Brunei Darussalam, Cambodia, Lao PDR, Malaysia, Singapore, and Viet Nam), alongside representatives from academia, civil society, private sector companies, and funding agencies.
The Forum opened with a sharing of the four high level recommendations outlined in the WHO Science Council’s upcoming report, Advancing the Responsible Use of Digital Technologies in Global Health:
- Connect – advocates a unifying approach to digital health focused on person-centered care, continuity of care, and communication of public health information.
- Educate – advocates measures for a health workforce that is better trained and equipped, financed, and incentivized to use digital technologies in patient care and public health, complemented by a general public that is also able to engage in the safe and effective use of digital health services.
- Invest – directs governments, development partners, and private sector corporations to make larger, sustained and coordinated investments in digital infrastructure, focused on greater and more equitable access to health services and information.
- Evaluate – promotes learning from experience, with systematic and on-going implementation, impact, and economic evaluation of support systems that can be used to change and optimize investments.
Following the opening sharing, participants engaged in three thematic panel discussions exploring:
- Country use cases and readiness for digital health and AI;
- Key implementation challenges and emerging solutions;
- Opportunities for regional collaboration to accelerate responsible implementation and governance of AI.
Key takeaways from the forum included:
- While most current AI use cases focus on clinical care, participants emphasized the need to expand investments in AI for public health and for operational efficiency gain in health systems, particularly in middle- and low-income countries. Country-level AI readiness was identified as a determinant of operationally feasible AI use cases for policy makers to endorse and promote.
- Common implementation challenges included the lack of consistent and sustainable governance, insufficient digital infrastructure and data sharing, limited workforce acceptance and capacity, and the lack of funding that is long-term and flexible. Countries shared practical solutions and early lessons from overcoming these barriers.
- Three priority areas for regional collaboration emerged: (1) shared digital and data infrastructure, (2) cross-country communities of action and practice, and (3) regionally coordinated AI marketplaces with open access for countries.
This Forum marks an important step in advancing a shared subregional agenda on digital health and AI for all ecosystem stakeholders to cooperate.