How Brunei’s BruHealth journey charts the future of digital health

The World Health Organization projects a shortage of 11.1 million health workers by 2030, while 4.5 billion people lack access to essential healthcare services. Simultaneously, non-communicable diseases now represent the leading cause of premature death globally, highlighting the need for healthcare systems to evolve towards more preventive and proactive approaches.

The COVID-19 pandemic created an unexpected catalyst for digital health innovation worldwide. While some implementations experienced significant technical challenges, these experiences contribute important insights about digital health transformation complexities.

As countries worldwide explore digital health solutions, sharing diverse experiences becomes increasingly valuable for collective learning and improvement. Brunei Darussalam’s journey building its own digital health platform, BruHealth, offers one perspective on how digital health platforms can evolve crisis response to support and strengthen broader health systems.

BruHealth was initially designed to track COVID-19, but has now morphed into a comprehensive health management platform covering everything from scheduling appointments to personalized routines designed to build healthy habits. As of 2022, 63% of our resident population logs in weekly, while 566,403 unique users access laboratory results digitally and 335,320 view imaging results through the platform.

Reflecting on our experience at the Ministry of Health of Brunei Darussalam, several insights emerge that may contribute to a broader understanding of digital health transformation, although our context presents advantages and limitations for replication.

The Ministry of Health's approach prioritized iterative development based on citizen feedback, rather than comprehensive launches that might overwhelm users. Each capability was added systematically: personal health record access, online appointment booking, digital queueing, video consultations and preventive screening modules. This strategy resulted in sustained engagement.

A critical innovation in our approach involves addressing the persistent challenge of sustaining health-positive behaviours beyond initial enthusiasm. Traditional public health campaigns often struggle with long-term engagement. We implemented economic incentives through the BruPoints mall system, enabling citizens to earn points through health activities – completing screening programmes, achieving step goals, maintaining medication adherence – and redeeming rewards from participating merchants. This creates tangible benefits for preventive health behaviours, while supporting local businesses.

The health promotion dimension demonstrates digital platforms’ potential for population engagement beyond clinical services. Our 'BN on the Move' steps challenge attracted nearly 49,000 participants who collectively achieved 1 billion steps in eight days, while our 'Oyen Challenge' uses gamified elements and friendly competition to maintain long-term health engagement. These initiatives show how digital tools can effectively motivate preventive health behaviours when designed with citizen engagement principles and sustained through meaningful incentives.

Our experience, however, highlights universal challenges requiring ongoing attention. The digital divide affects elderly populations and those with limited digital literacy, while language barriers present obstacles for diverse communities. We continue developing targeted support, including simplified interfaces, multilingual options and community-based digital literacy programmes to ensure equitable access.

From a policy perspective, sustainable digital health transformation demands institutional capacity building alongside technological development. We established the MOH Intelligence Hub for automated disease surveillance, a dedicated Digital Health Unit for coordinating transformation across healthcare services and strengthened outbreak response capabilities through our Epidemic Intelligence and Response Unit.

Our regional leadership through ASEAN Health Cluster 3 chairmanship enables knowledge sharing with partners facing similar challenges. This collaborative approach recognizes that health security often transcends national boundaries and benefits from coordinated responses informed by shared learning experiences.

The fundamental question facing global health leaders isn’t whether digital transformation will reshape healthcare delivery – it’s whether these changes will strengthen or fragment efforts towards universal health coverage and health equity.

Our experience suggests that when digital health initiatives prioritize genuine citizen engagement, address equity concerns proactively and build institutional capacity systematically, they can create more resilient and accessible healthcare ecosystems that serve the ultimate goal of health for all.

Yidu Tech's collaboration with Brunei’s Ministry of Health, through local implementation partner EVYD Technology, demonstrates how international partnerships can accelerate innovation while respecting local contexts and regulatory requirements.

BruHealth 5.0’s AI-enhanced architecture represents a fundamental shift from static information delivery to adaptive, learning health ecosystems. The platform’s AI capabilities analyze individual behaviour patterns – diet, sleep, stress levels and activity – and provide personalized health recommendations that evolve with user needs, rather than delivering generic guidance.

This technical approach addresses a critical gap in population health management: moving beyond one-size-fits-all public health messaging to interventions tailored for individual risk factors and lifestyle patterns. Early implementation results suggest that personalized AI-driven recommendations achieve significantly higher user engagement and behavioural modification, compared to standardized health communications.

Implementing AI in healthcare, however, demands rigorous attention to ethical considerations and responsible deployment practices. We prioritize algorithmic transparency, maintain human clinical oversight of all AI-generated recommendations and continuously monitor systems for potential biases. Recent analysis emphasizes that successful AI deployment must ensure equity, transparency and human-centred care – principles that become increasingly complex as systems scale to serve diverse populations.

Yidu Health's technical architecture emphasizes modularity and cross-border adaptability, recognizing that successful digital health solutions must accommodate varying regulatory frameworks, cultural preferences and existing infrastructure capabilities. The platform's design enables knowledge transfer and technology adaptation across different contexts, while maintaining core functionality and learning capabilities.

Looking ahead, our collaboration with Brunei's Ministry of Health advances towards precision public health, digital therapeutics and AI-powered health insights that build on BruHealth's foundation. This evolution requires a careful balance between technological sophistication and accessibility, ensuring that advanced capabilities enhance, rather than complicate healthcare delivery for providers and citizens.

In line with the World Economic Forum's Digital Healthcare Transformation Initiative goals, our experience demonstrates that sustainable digital health transformation succeeds not through technology deployment alone, but by integrating intelligent systems with inclusive design principles and sustained governance commitment. The technical innovations that prove most valuable are those that strengthen health systems' capacity to serve all populations effectively, contributing to the collective global effort towards universal health coverage and equitable health outcomes.