November 17, 2021 (Virtual)
The COVID-19 pandemic has led to a massive acceleration in the use and general acceptance of telehealth and, more broadly, virtual healthcare. Nevertheless, more than a year after the pandemic started, the benefits of leveraging digital health technologies to enhance patient outcomes remain highly unequal. In many ways, the pandemic has set the world’s two largest economies, the United States and China, on a similar path, where the new realities of technology in health care are both creating new opportunities and exposing longstanding challenges.
How have digital technologies affected the overall health care landscape and equity in the United States and China? In examining the policy implications of digital health innovation in different settings, how can both nations translate the lessons learned in 2021 to a better future in 2022 and beyond? To answer these questions, the George H. W. Bush Foundation for U.S.- China Relations (Bush China Foundation) convened a U.S.-China Roundtable on Digital Technologies and Urban-Rural Health to discuss the implications and lessons learned from implementing health technologies in the two countries, in coordination with the Chinese Academy of Science and Technology for Development (CASTED).