Liz Ashall-Payne, founding CEO of ORCHA, has presented at a United Nations symposium on digital health. The invite-only conference, which was billed an ‘intellectual supercollider’, was streamed by UNESCO to 150 countries. Liz briefed the delegates on a cross-border project which ORCHA has supported across the Nordics. She said: “I believe there are lessons here which could be relevant as we roll out safe digital health across the globe.”

Liz Ashall-Payne, founding CEO of ORCHA, presented at a United Nations symposium on digital health.

Liz’s presentation outlined ORCHA’s work in the field of digital health accreditation and focused on its development, with the Nordic Innovation Partnership, of the world’s first cross-border digital health evaluation programme.

She said:

“I briefed the delegates on a cross-border project which ORCHA supported across the Nordics. I believe there are lessons here which could be relevant as we roll out safe digital health across the globe.”

The Nordic region, which encompasses Sweden, Denmark, Norway, Finland and Iceland, has a transient population, so it makes sense for these separate nations to integrate their health systems so that citizens are supported on the move. Despite the 365,000 digital health technologies on the market, no standardised regulation or risk management system is in place in any of the Nordic states, let alone any shared standards between the countries.

The Nordic Digital Health and Evaluation Criteria (NordDEC) programme, has been created by ORCHA and partners to unify digital health standards across multiple countries, so that safe digital health can reach citizens across the entire region.

Liz said that lessons learned from the NordDEC could now be rolled out globally – bringing countries, regions and continents together in a joint effort to get better healthcare to more people.

She added:

“The invitation to speak at this great event came via Martin Curley of Ireland’s Health Service Executive, after our meeting earlier this year. Thank you Martin for giving ORCHA this opportunity.”

Discover more about ORCHA:

The Organisation for the Review of Care and Health Apps (ORCHA) is the world’s leading, independent digital health evaluation and distribution organisation. It helps health and care organisations to deliver the right digital health apps, to the right people, at the right time. Its unique insight, assessment, and implementation services are improving the health of the population, the health of our health systems and the health of the health app ecosystem. ORCHA conducts reviews for government organisations across Europe, the Middle East, and Australasia. In the UK, ORCHA conducts reviews for NHS Digital and NHS providers in 70% of regions