Asia House Fellow for 2022-23 Aarthi Raghavan presented her research on Asia’s Digital Health Innovations: The role of cross-border health data sharing at an Asia House digital research briefing on Tuesday, 31 October.
Drawing from comparative regulatory analyses and interviews with key players in the industry, Aarthi delved into how Asia fosters healthcare innovation, focusing on the evolving national health data infrastructure in five key Asian countries: China, India, Indonesia, Malaysia, and Singapore.
Aarthi’s research, which she undertook as inaugural Asia House Fellow, found that the governments in the five studied countries employ market-oriented regulations or regulatory sandboxes to support the scaling of local digital health innovations. Yet stakeholders, particularly healthcare start-ups, grapple with challenges in navigating nascent data protection regulations, highlighting urgent needs to address existing gaps in the healthcare sector. Aarthi concluded her presentation by proposing recommendations for designing a global health data governance framework to facilitate secure cross-border sharing of health data.
The discussion that followed touched on a wide range of topics such as data privacy in cross-border flow of health data and quantitative key performance indicators (KPIs) for each national electronic health recording system. Senior representatives of pharmaceutical companies and biotechnology research institutions were present during the briefing.
Moderated by Zhouchen Mao, Head of Research and Advisory at Asia House, the research briefing contributes valuable knowledge that can inform policymakers, healthcare professionals, and industry stakeholders about the dynamics of healthcare innovation, regulatory challenges, and the potential for regional collaboration in the realm of health data.
The Asia House Fellowship Programme aims to develop the next generation of business and policy leaders. The Fellowship offers a unique 12-month opportunity for two postgraduate candidates who share Asia House’s vision for a strong and dynamic relationship between Asia, the Middle East, and Europe.
The recruitment for the 2024-2025 Fellows is currently underway – learn more here.