Dr Marlon-Ralph Nyakabau, a digital health consultant presented a Public Lecture on Digital Health Applications entitled “Building the Bridge Between Two Sectors” at the HIT Innovation Hub on Friday 24th of February 2023.

In his presentation, Dr Nyakabau stated that digital health interventions strengthen the health care system. “Digital health is ushering a new model of care which is democratic, integrated, precise and predictive. It presents real opportunities for achieving universal health coverage and realizing these opportunities requires bridging the gap between health and technology professionals as team work makes the dream to work,” Dr Nyakabau said.

“Digital Health Interventions (DHI) are organized into overarching groupings based on the primary targeted users, which are health care providers, health system resource managers and data services.”

“Major digital health use cases include ehealth, electronic health records, telemedicine or telehealth. The Covid-19 pandemic came in as a booster shot for telemedicine with most of the global consultations being conducted digitally through social media platforms like WhatsApp, Zoom and mobile health devices,” he said.

Digital health also includes big data through the collection of large volumes of data and Artificial Intelligence (AI).

Dr Nyakabau also spelt out the ethical considerations that must be adhered to in the development and use of digital health interventions such as the patient-doctor relationships, privacy and confidentiality, litigation in cases of medical errors as well as clinical competency.

Dr Marlon-Ralph Nyakabau has a MBChB from the University of Zimbabwe, a Masters in E-Health Management and Telemedicine (Rome Business School). He is a Digital Health Consultant, Former Head of Health at Cumii International, Former Head of Maisha Health, a member of the International Society for Telemedicine and e-health (ISfTeH) and Global Digital Health Network. He is also an author of digital health articles published on TechZim.

The Public Lecture was organized by the School of Information Science and Technology in collaboration with the School of Allied Health Sciences.

Dean Chikowore and Dean Mushosho of the School of Information Science and Technology and the School of Allied Health Sciences, respectively, urged their students to work in collaboration on projects and innovations that involve digital health systems.