Author: Mathilde Forslund, CEO, Transform Health
For a long time, people have encouraged me to write about how Transform Health was founded. What better occasion to share that story than as we celebrate the coalition’s five-year anniversary?
Over the last five years, the coalition has come a long way in bringing diverse stakeholders together to advocate, campaign, influence, and provide policy and technical support for the digital transformation of health with the shared goal of accelerating progress toward universal health coverage (UHC). We have grown from a coalition of seven founding members to more than 215 organisations taking collective action for everyone, everywhere.
How it started
What few know is that Transform Health’s story actually began back in October 2018, when a group of like-minded people and organisations gathered for a co-creation workshop in Basel, hosted by Fondation Botnar.
Around the table were representatives from the World Health Organisation (WHO), PATH, Women Deliver, Last Mile Health, International Telecommunications Union, The Partnership on Maternal, Newborn and Child Health (PMNCH), the Graduate Institute of Geneva, London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, Shape History, D-Tree, Abt Associates, and several others. We came together to ask a fundamental question: why have health systems not yet fully digitalised, despite over a decade of innovation in mHealth, eHealth and digital health?
First co-creation workshop hosted in Basel by Fondation Botnar, October 2018.
We all recognised the enormous potential that digital technology and the equitable use of data have to strengthen health systems, improve primary health care, and extend services to the most marginalised. But we also knew that progress had been slow and fragmented.
The conclusion we reached was simple — the challenge was not technology; it was politics.
Without political commitment, leadership, and the right enabling environment – laws, policies, standards, and sustainable investments – digital health efforts tend to remain fragmented and small in scale. Many organisations were implementing digital solutions, but few were addressing the health systems challenges for digital transformation of health to be sustained.
From idea to movement
Armed with this realisation, we decided to create what would become Transform Health — a global coalition focused on “Health for All in the Digital Age.” Our mission was clear: to build political will, strengthen governance, and ensure technology could be adopted at scale in equitable and inclusive ways.
At first, we called it the “The Digital Transformation for UHC 2030 Coalition that brings together local and global stakeholders from multiple sectors to accelerate the use of artificial intelligence (AI), digital and frontier technologies to achieve Universal Health Coverage, particularly for underserved and disempowered populations.” — encapsulating our vision but quite a mouthful! So, we refined it into what it is today: Transform Health.
In 2019, we convened partners during the UN General Assembly in New York to co-create the coalition’s strategic objectives. These continue to guide our work today:
- Building political will and creating an enabling environment
- Strengthening health data governance
- Ensuring more and better funding for digital health transformation
We also defined our core values – equity, inclusion, rights, empowerment, and partnership, and made a commitment to put young people, women, and marginalised communities at the centre of driving digital transformation. A sister initiative, Young Experts: Tech for Health (YET4H), was also born to bring youth voices and leadership into our movement.
A partners retreat organised at the sidelines of United Nations General Assembly, September 2019.
A Youth engagement workshop that saw the kick off of Young Experts: Tech for Health (YET4H), June 2019, at the Women Deliver Conference in Vancouver.
Launching Transform Health
The COVID-19 pandemic soon put the potential of digital transformation into sharp focus. Digital tools became lifelines supporting telemedicine, enabling data-driven surveillance, and keeping essential health services running. The pandemic also exposed the risks of fragmented, non-interoperable systems and underscored the need for a robust digital health enabling environment.
It was in this context that Transform Health was officially launched on 20 November 2020. Our mission was to bring together diverse partners to advocate, campaign, and provide policy and technical support for digital transformation of health systems, whilst ensuring that no one is left behind.
The launch of the Governing Health Futures 2030: Growing up in a Digital World, a Lancet And Financial Times Commission report in 2021, also marked a defining moment in the global conversation on digital transformation of health. The report challenged governments, institutions, and civil society to confront a rapidly changing digital landscape, where data, technology, and health systems were becoming increasingly intertwined. The report called for the global community to reimagine health governance for a digital era, anchored in equity, rights, and people-centred approaches.
Transform Health has been carrying some of the report’s recommendations forward. Moving from vision to action, we have been advocating for stronger digital governance frameworks and mobilising partners across sectors. We are helping ensure that the recommendations envisioned in the report are not only discussed but implemented and translated into concrete policy actions nationally, regionally and globally.
Where we are now
Five years since our launch, we have grown into a vibrant coalition of over 215 organisations across the globe. We’ve also established national coalitions in Ecuador, Kenya, Indonesia, Mexico, India, and Senegal, each driving digital transformation in their own contexts by strengthening governance, legislation, regulation and coordinated investment.
Our national work has already had real impact:
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Kenya – Supported the drafting and enactment of the Digital Health Act, now being implemented at county level to improve rights, transparency, and service delivery for 56 million people. |
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Ecuador – Helped develop the National Digital Health Policy, with a roadmap to improve access and efficiency for 18 million Ecuadorians. |
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Indonesia – Co-developed a national digital health curriculum, strengthening competencies for 9,500 health workers each year. |
| Senegal – Supporting the passage of a Digital Health Law to guide coordinated expansion of digital health services. |  |
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Mexico – Working with partners to strengthen the national health data governance framework to protect data and reinforce citizens’ rights. |
These examples remind me that our strength lies in working across sectors, combining technical, legal, financial, and policy expertise to drive meaningful change at the national level.
Regional and global impact
Globally, our coalition has focused on two foundational issues: health data governance and sustainable investment..
In 2022, we launched the Health Data Governance Principles, now endorsed by more than 170 organisations and governments. We also developed a Model Law on Health Data Governance, providing a blueprint to help countries strengthen legislation and to inform regional and global frameworks—including ongoing work with the Africa CDC on a Continental Framework. We are building political momentum towards a global framework to be endorsed by governments through a resolution at the World Health Assembly.
On the financing side, our report Closing the Digital Divide helped quantify what it will take to fund digital transformation sustainably. We’re now working with partners to build a shared digital health investment taxonomy, which we hope will be a step toward better classification of digital health investment and ultimately better tracking, reporting and transparency around national and international investment.
A global diverse team & board with a global and national footprint
Along the way we have also grown into a mature secretariat that continues to contribute to policy changes nationally, regionally and globally and drive the coalition’s collective agenda. This team of passionate and smart individuals make it a pleasure to go to work everyday. Transform Health is also honoured to benefit from a diverse and experienced Executive Committee that determines the strategic direction of Transform Health. It is ultimately the people behind any movement that turn ideas into action and impact.
Looking ahead: The Roadmap to 2030
We are halfway to 2030. While the pace of technological innovation has never been faster, health outcomes have not kept pace and health still remains the single largest expense for most people. That’s why we’re launching a new Roadmap to 2030: Health for All in the Digital Age on UHC Day (12th December).
This roadmap is a collective effort to chart the way forward around a common agenda, bringing together governments, multilateral organisations, civil society, and private sector partners around a shared vision over the next five years as we continue to advance towards UHC by 2030.
As I reflect on this journey, I’m filled with gratitude for the founding partners who believed in this vision, for the coalitions that make it real at national level, and for the youth, women, and communities who continue to inspire our work every day.
“If you want to go fast, go alone. If you want to go far, go together.”
This African proverb has guided us from day one and feels more relevant than ever. Building shared commitment in a fragmented world isn’t easy, but it’s the only way to achieve lasting change.
As we mark five years of Transform Health, I invite you to join us as we take the next steps on our shared journey towards health for all in the digital age.
Members of the Transform Health secretariat.