Norway joins Be He@lthy, Be Mobile initiative
4 November 2014, Oslo: Norway has officially joined the WHO-ITU Be He@lthy, Be Mobile initiative. The announcement was made at the launch event during the eHIN Conference held in Oslo, Norway on November 4th, 2014. The conference brings together a range of public and commercial operators to create a common national forum on the theme of digitizing health care.
In 2013, Norway became the first WHO member nation to launch a national NCD strategy in response to the WHO Global Action Plan on NCDs adopted at the World Health Assembly with a goal of a 25% reduction in premature mortality due to NCDs by 2025. Given its commitment to NCDs as a major disease burden and its ongoing interest in mobile health interventions, Norway is well-positioned to play a leading role in the development of an mHealth for NCDs intervention. Joining the ‘Be He@lthy, Be Mobile’ initiative gives Norway an opportunity both to improve public health services for its citizens, and to play a leadership role among the United Nations Member States by sharing its knowledge and results with other countries.
“Norway is a prime example of everything this initiative hopes to achieve. By partnering with Be He@lthy, Be Mobile, the pioneering work done in Norway on mHealth will be recognized by and bring benefit to the world.” said WHO Assistant Director-General - Noncommunicable Diseases and Mental Health, Oleg Chestnov in welcoming Norway to the initiative. “In return the Initiative can accelerate Norway’s expertise by sharing knowledge from programmes across the world with them. This kind of feedback loop will allow Norwegian programmes to expand to other areas, and will support both developed and developing countries to achieve the best health care systems possible.”
“As Minister of Health one of my most important tasks is ensuring that our health services empower the individual.” said Minister of Health and Care Services of Norway, Bent Høie. “mHealth provides new possibilities to improve our way of delivering health services and new ways to empower patients and citizens to intervene in their own healthcare. We will be working with the initiative to focus our scope on how to assist the population to use mobile devices to cope with NCD related problems.”
The objectives of the Norway Programme are to scale up mHealth programmes in the country and promote the sharing of technical content and expertise by working towards health system strengthening.
