Delegates explored the role innovation and data can play to promote health at the 9th Global Conference on Health Promotion (9GCHP) on Nov 22 in Shanghai.

Margaret Chan, WHO Director-General, noted that information and telecommunication has brought new opportunities to health promotion and serves as a platform for individuals, families and communities to take the right action to balance economic development with health well-being.

She also calls on governments to explore frontier of health leveraging telecommunication technology and to improve the compatibility of hospital data systems across the country. 

Houlin Zhao, Secretary-General of the International Telecommunication Union (ITU) also emphasized the importance of information sharing. According to Zhao, a unified standard should be a priority, not only at a municipal level but also at an international level.

Baroness Joanna Shields, Minister for Internet Safety and Security in the UK, mentioned that the government has been insisting on a digitally-focused government and empowering people to take the initiative for their own lives. Thanks to empowerment from the government, individuals can develop their own data, search for government resources and seek the solution for their own health problems. 

"Technology has brought side effects while changing our life style," said Baroness Shields. "So we need to think about how to address crimes brought by technology via technology."

Robin Li, co-founder of the Chinese Internet search giant Baidu, noted that it's only the first step that people try self-treatment online. The second step would take the model of an O2O mode, to transfer online resources offline. The third phase, he said, aims to achieve smart treatment, a smart internet-based treatment system that can assist physicians to diagnose and treat diseases.

Robin Li (L1), co-founder of Chinese search engine Baidu, and Magaret Chan (L2), WHO Director-General, join the panelists to discuss innovation's role for health at the 9GCHP on Nov 22 in Shanghai.