Academics

During the 79th World Health Assembly, a high-level World Health Organization (WHO) side event showcased to the international community China's practical pathways and institutional explorations in empowering integrated digital health with artificial intelligence (AI). The symposium was co-hosted by the School of Public Health of Fudan University, Shanghai Soft Science Research Base, Zhejiang Urban Governance Studies Center, and the Institute of Global Health at the University of Geneva. Representatives from 307 institutions across 62 countries and regions attended the event.

Sameer Pujari, Leading AI for health at Department of Data Digital Health, Analytics and Artificial Intelligence of WHO; Louise Agersnap, head of the WHO Innovation Hub; Antoine Geissbuhler, dean of the Faculty of Medicine at the University of Geneva; Beatrice Ferrari, director of International Affairs of the Canton of Geneva; ZHU Hongming, director of the Health Development Research Center of the National Health Commission of China; and LUO Li, party secretary of the School of Public Health at Fudan University, attended and delivered remarks,focusing on cutting-edge topics in digital health and health system innovation. Attendees noted that in its process of promoting AI-enabled integrated digital health, China is forming a systematic pathway from multiple dimensions.

In terms of full-lifecycle health management, AI has transformed from a supportive tool in a single segment into a continuous service link bridging prevention, diagnosis, treatment, and rehabilitation. The Obstetrics and Gynecology Hospital of Fudan University, using women's full-lifecycle health management as an example, demonstrated how to rely on technology to break down institutional and stage-based barriers. This enables the integrated service model of "single entry, full-course care" to gradually become a reality, fully embodying a people-centered service philosophy.

In the field of public health, smart technologies are accelerating the transformation of prevention and control models. According to the Shanghai Municipal Center for Disease Control and Prevention, by leveraging big data, knowledge graphs, and multi-agent AI technologies, Shanghai's public health system is shifting from passive response to proactive perception. With earlier risk identification, more accurate early warnings, and faster interventions, it has built an intelligent defense line for urban safety.

At the institutional level, the exploration of health indices and health credit provides new tools for health governance. The School of Public Health at Fudan University introduced an innovative practice that transforms personal health behaviors into quantifiable, incentivizable, and verifiable social assets. This novel idea expands AI's role from efficiency improvement to incentive-compatible institutional design, creating new possibilities for chronic disease prevention and universal health promotion, which garnered widespread attention from the attendees.

Regarding service network construction, digital health cities are building highly accessible service systems. Health Cloud Digital Technology Co., Ltd. shared Shanghai's experience: through the deep integration of internet healthcare, digital health districts, and tele-medicine platforms, high-quality medical resources are systematically channeled into communities and homes, putting convenient and equitable health services within reach. This large-scale, systematic implementation capability provides solid support for integrated digital health.

These practices are not advanced in isolation, but are accelerating from single-point applications to systemic innovation, underpinned by the integration of underlying mechanisms such as data governance, ethical norms, and payment coordination. During the roundtable discussions, representatives from the Shanghai Pulmonary Hospital, Children's Hospital of Fudan University, Ant Group, and Wuhan Landing Intelligent Medical Co., Ltd. unanimously agreed that China's ultra-large-scale practices in fields like intelligent screening, remote diagnosis and treatment, and health management have consolidated integrated system experiences that can be referenced and replicated globally.

From a broader historical perspective, what China presents today is perhaps not merely a working example of "AI + Health", but an institutional prototype for a healthy society of the future. When health responsibilities can be quantified and converted into credit assets, when disease prevention and control shifts from passive response to proactive perception, and when high-quality medical resources are no longer constrained by geography but flow into every home through a digital foundation-all of this points to a deeper proposition: in the AI era, the core of health governance will shift from "how to treat illnesses" to "how to make health sustainable". China's answer is still being written, but one thing is already clear: it is not satisfied with letting AI merely be a tool; instead, it aims to make AI a lever that transforms the entire logic of health systems. This ambition, in itself, is the most valuable signal this side event has left for the world.

In international exchanges, the frontier explorations shared by multiple foreign scholars mutually reinforced the Chinese path. Carlos Molina, professor at Barcelona University Hospital (Vall d'Hebron Hospital) and director of the Stroke Center, proposed that large language models and AI agents are expected to connect the entire chain of stroke care, but clinical implementation must establish a solid safety baseline of rigorous validation, privacy protection, and workflow integration.

Olivier Michielin, professor at Geneva University Hospitals and head of the Oncology Department, demonstrated breakthrough progress in using AI to integrate clinical, multi-omics, and digital pathology data to push cancer diagnosis and treatment from a one-size-fits-all approach to true personalization.

Nicolas Ray, professor and director of the Institute of Global Health at the University of Geneva, pointed out that geospatial data, earth observation, and AI can optimize the allocation of medical resources and help realize a "15-minute health circle".

Christian Lovis, professor and head of the Division of Medical Information Sciences at Geneva University Hospitals, emphasized that clinical applications of AI must strike a balance among data interoperability, safety risks, and explainability.

Emilia Frangos, general director of the Geneva Institution for Home Care and Assistance (IMAD), shared a new care paradigm enabled by smart sensors, remote monitoring, and AI technologies, one that prioritizes outpatient and home-based care, with hospitalization as a last resort.

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Presented by Fudan University Media Center

Source: School of Public Health, Fudan University

Editor: WANG Mengqi, LI Yijie