A new global report titled “Going Digital for Noncommunicable Diseases: WHO-ITU publication “The Case for Action” underlines the major health and economic performance of digitally enabled solutions in controlling NCDs. To augment this need, the report argues for the use of a comprehensive approach to the digitalization of health interventions encompassing telemedicine, mobile health applications, and health chatbots in the face of the escalating burden of NCDs.

The research evidence shows that an investment of less than $0.67 per patient on a yearly basis could eliminate more than 2 million patients’ mortality globally and reduce the overall health cost by $199 billion in the next one decade. However, the report emphasizes the need to build digital, accessible, and sustainable health services, given that, for example, a third of the global population is without access to the Internet. This paper affirms that improving the health sector technology and infrastructure is key to the deliver of quality healthcare services to those in need.

In Indonesia of the recommendations highlighted in the report can enhance the speed of the push for digital health interventions within the country, which have recently centralized on enhancing the efficiency of application in surveillance and monitoring of NCDs. Plans for smart health applications like ASIK (Aplikasi Sehat Indonesiaku), SATUSEHAT, and the

NCD Information System (Sistem Informasi PTM-SI PTM) already exist, meaning that Indonesia has the ingredients for using digital health to improve the health system.

The review therefore affirms itself as a powerful advocacy for governments and other stakeholders in health systems in countries to factor in to adoption of health information technology solutions that address effectively the challenges of non-communicable diseases.