Improving health quality and equity in Africa will require the inclusion of digitisation in policy agendas, and Lagos sits at the forefront of digital health in Africa, owing to legislation that promotes the use of new healthcare technology, says healthcare event Africa Health Conference producer Cynthia Makarutse.

Digital healthcare and healthcare technology have a role to play in achieving a sustainable health system in Africa.

This year’s Africa Health Conference, to be held from October 26 to 28, will see industry leaders, policymakers, health system specialists and other health experts gather to discuss the critical role played by digitisation and technology in forging a sustainable path for Africa’s often highly constrained health systems, Makarutse says.

Chief among the emergent technologies reshaping Africa’s healthcare landscape is the increasingly sophisticated Big Data, artificial intelligence and algorithmic machine learning tools, which are ubiquitous across many healthcare sub-fields. Such tools are assisting with high-level decision-making in healthcare management, and streamlining everyday management tasks such as admissions procedures and triage.

“Entire new subfields within the healthcare industry, such as informatics and health information exchanges have emerged around these technologies and are already driving the evolution of Africa’s healthcare systems,” says Makarutse.

Ever-accelerating technological sophistication has permeated every sphere of medicine and healthcare in Africa, including pharmaceuticals, manufacturing, supply chain management, three-dimensional printing and information technology infrastructure.

These innovations will converge to bring about cascading benefits, allowing Africa’s health systems the potential to improve relatively swiftly, she says.

“Having risen to prominence almost overnight in some regions, telemedicine is starting to bring better healthcare into the most remote and rural regions on the continent, thereby creating the potential for improved access to specialised services,” Makarutse says.

Further, biometrics facilitated by innovative Internet of Things devices and wearables, such as watches that let users take electrocardiogram scans, are empowering African people to better monitor their health and make more informed healthcare decisions.

Africa has potential to excel in the research and development, production and manufacturing of innovative technology-driven healthcare solutions tailored to the continent’s unique healthcare challenges. These technology-driven innovations are improving Africa’s healthcare outlook.

“Ever-advancing healthcare tech is presenting new opportunities to deliver the medicine, technology, and human capacity to the people and places where they are needed most, and helping industry leaders balance the drive for resilient, inclusive universal healthcare with the reality of constrained human-, medical- and technological resources,” she says.

Meanwhile, Africa Young Innovators for Health Award winner and CIG Space CEO Dr Conrad Tankou will address conference delegates on Africa’s potential to advance health equity through technology.

This will be a part of the free-to-attend highlight show Transformation Zone, in which thought leaders, innovators, industry experts, and technology giants from the continent will unveil industry trends, insights, and innovations that look set to reshape the continent’s healthcare landscape over the coming years.