From pilots to scale: 3 principles for sustainable digital health

In April 2025, Rwanda’s Ministry of Health unveiled its new Health Intelligence Centre. This impressive technological and operational achievement is already helping the government to identify the drivers of maternal mortality, direct HIV prevention resources with greater precision, ensure household contacts of people with tuberculosis are screened at scale and maintain surveillance against disease outbreaks, including mpox.

The Health Intelligence Centre comes as a direct result of years of deliberate and thoughtful investment in fundamentals that form a digital backbone: reliable electricity and internet connectivity, digitized health facilities, a strong community health workforce, robust national electronic medical record and surveillance systems and persistent efforts to reach the last mile.

With these foundations in place, the Health Intelligence Center turns data that once sat in under-used, disparate systems into timely and actionable insight. From insight to actions, the centre enables faster, accurate decision-making to the last mile, which is critical for all current thinking on deploying artificial intelligence (AI) in the health system.

Rwanda’s experience is a flagship example of what the Global Fund has learned through its investments and work with governments, technology firms and regional initiatives: to guarantee sustainable value, digital innovation must be embedded into robust and resilient systems. Pursuing novel tools without planning a well-prepared landing environment may generate buzz through pilots, but rarely results in the desired progress. Standalone products – vertical disease-specific patient systems, multiple electronic medical record or product-tracking systems – tend to cost more, fragment national capacity, narrow the market for future solutions and, ultimately, may erode public trust.

In contrast, when national leaders invest in building blocks, such as infrastructure, data standards, skilled people, markets for crucial products and interoperable platforms, the benefits of innovation are compounded – especially when public and private partners align and collaborate behind those priorities. Building from the base up creates the conditions to responsibly scale AI to detect health threats earlier and direct resources to where they can save the most lives. Rwanda’s Health Intelligence Center is not just a showcase of what digital health can do, but also a reminder of what strong foundations and coherent partnerships make possible.

As attendees of the Annual Meeting of the World Economic Forum in Davos, we have the opportunity – and responsibility – to ensure that AI in health reinforces national priorities, strengthens public infrastructure and delivers measurable value for people. We cannot afford to treat AI tools as standalone fixes that fragment already stretched systems. They must be selected, deployed and financed in ways that align with – and profit from – national data systems, targeted procurement rules, and ICT (information and communications technology) strategies.

The Global Fund has been making digital and data investments for more than two decades. These three lessons stand out:

1. Integrating AI within national, country-led digital systems will drive the greatest change.
AI adds most value when it drives system-level decision-making by sitting on top of reliable data flows, shared standards and coordinated platforms that serve multiple health priorities. Emerging economies such as Ethiopia, Zimbabwe and Zambia are taking the lead with partners to replace siloed, disease-specific digital platforms with interoperable platforms designed for long-term sustainability.

2. Foundational digital infrastructure is a public good that requires maintenance.
AI requires strong institutions, transparent governance and sustainable financing. When countries and partners align around national architectures, AI becomes adaptive, secure and resilient – supporting both routine services and preparedness for future threats.

3. Public-private co-design and investment is a stimulus and needed at scale.
Through blended public–private financing, technical assistance and implementation partners, the Global Fund is supporting countries to scale AI-enabled diagnostics, strengthen surveillance and modernize supply chains. These investments unlock domestic resources and private-sector participation, turning promising pilots into functional, country-owned systems.

AI will not succeed through short-term experiments. It will succeed when we invest in scalable, sustainable, integrated systems that support countries in making faster, more impactful decisions – decisions that save lives.