The World Economic Forum Publishes Co-Authored Article by Gong Rujing: How Brunei’s BruHealth Charts the Future of Digital Health

Recently, the official website of the World Economic Forum published a co-authored article by Dato Dr. Mohammad Isham Jaafar, Minister of Health of Brunei, and Gong Rujing, Founder and Chairlady of Yidu Tech Inc., titled "How Brunei’s BruHealth Journey Charts the Future of Digital Health."

The article provides an in-depth analysis of how the BruHealth platform has successfully evolved from a crisis response tool into a digital infrastructure supporting Brunei’s national health system. Its "step-by-step, user-driven" development strategy, innovative incentive mechanisms, and AI-enabled health management offer a new paradigm for the sustainable transformation of global digital health. Brunei’s experience demonstrates that the core of digital health transformation lies in the synergistic development of technological innovation, universal accessibility, and governance capabilities.

BruHealth was jointly developed by Yidu Tech and the Ministry of Health of Brunei. In the article, Gong Rujing pointed out that Yidu Tech will leverage the experience gained from building the BruHealth platform to further advance cutting-edge applications such as precision public health, digital therapeutics, and AI-driven health insights. While enhancing technological advancement, the company remains committed to ensuring accessibility, so that technological progress truly benefits the public and creates value.

Brunei’s BruHealth platform exemplifies how a digital platform can evolve from a crisis response tool into a critical force supporting and strengthening a nation’s overall healthcare system. Although Brunei’s national context is unique in certain aspects, making its model difficult to replicate entirely, the lessons learned from this practice may offer valuable insights for global digital health transformation. Brunei’s experience confirms that truly sustainable digital health transformation requires the organic integration of intelligent systems, the implementation of inclusive design principles, and sustained governance mechanisms.

The World Health Organization estimates that by 2030, there will be a global shortage of 11.1 million healthcare workers, while 4.5 billion people worldwide still lack access to essential healthcare services. Meanwhile, non-communicable diseases have become the leading cause of premature deaths globally, compelling healthcare systems worldwide to shift from a "treatment-centric" approach to a "prevention-centric" one.

The previous global pandemic of infectious diseases triggered an unprecedented wave of digital health innovation worldwide. Although many countries faced technical and systemic challenges during implementation, these experiences provided valuable learning opportunities for the digital transformation of healthcare.

As countries explore digital health solutions, sharing practical experiences from different nations and regions has become increasingly important for mutual learning and collaborative improvement. Brunei’s development of its digital health platform, BruHealth, offers an instructive example.

Initially, BruHealth’s core function was pandemic tracking, but it quickly evolved into a comprehensive platform integrating health management, medical services, and personalized health habit cultivation. To date, 63% of Brunei’s population logs into the platform at least once a week, with 566,403 users viewing lab results and 335,320 users accessing imaging reports through the platform.

Insights for Sustainable Health Engagement

From the practical experience of Brunei’s Ministry of Health, some universally applicable lessons for transformation can be summarized, albeit within the constraints of local specificities.

The Ministry of Health adopted a "step-by-step, user feedback-driven" development approach, avoiding the large-scale rollout of a complex system at the outset to prevent overwhelming users. Features were introduced incrementally, including personal health records, appointment booking, virtual queuing, video consultations, and preventive screenings. This approach effectively enhanced user engagement and long-term participation.

Another key innovation lies in transforming residents’ "short-term health enthusiasm" into "long-term health behaviors." Traditional public health advocacy often struggles to achieve sustained behavioral change. To address this, the BruHealth platform introduced the "BruPoints reward mechanism": residents earn points by participating in health screenings, achieving daily step goals, adhering to medication, and other healthy behaviors. These points can be redeemed for gifts at partner merchants, creating tangible benefits for preventive health actions while supporting local businesses.

These features demonstrate that digital platforms can not only serve clinical healthcare but also enable "whole-of-society participation" in health promotion. For instance, the government-initiated "BN on the Move" step challenge attracted nearly 49,000 participants, who collectively walked over 1 billion steps in just eight days. Similarly, the "Oyen Challenge" used gamification and friendly competition to continuously motivate users to maintain healthy lifestyles. Clearly, well-designed digital tools can drive powerful health behavioral dynamics.

Of course, Brunei also faced common global challenges: older adults and those with limited digital skills were more likely to be left behind in the digitalization process, and language barriers hindered access for some populations. To address this, the country continuously optimized the platform’s user experience by providing simplified interfaces, multilingual options, and promoting digital literacy education through community efforts to ensure inclusivity.

From a policy perspective, sustainable digital health transformation is not merely a technical issue but also a systematic building of governance capabilities. Brunei’s Ministry of Health established three core institutions for this purpose: the "Smart Information Center" for automated disease surveillance, the "Digital Health Unit" to coordinate the digital transformation of healthcare services, and the "Epidemic Intelligence and Response Center" to strengthen pandemic response systems.

As the rotating chair of the "ASEAN Health Cluster 3" cooperation mechanism, Brunei actively engages in knowledge exchange and collaborative responses with countries facing similar challenges through regional platforms. Health security transcends national borders and requires transnational coordination and joint safeguarding.

The key question for global health leaders today is not "whether to digitalize" but "whether this transformation will advance or hinder the goals of universal health coverage and health equity."

From Brunei’s experience, only digital health projects that genuinely prioritize resident engagement, proactively address equity issues, and continuously strengthen institutional capabilities can build a more resilient and sustainable national health system.

Technological Innovation Enabling Smarter Health Systems

The collaboration between Yidu Tech and Brunei’s Ministry of Health, implemented by the local joint venture EVYD, fully demonstrates the value of international cooperation—effectively driving healthcare innovation while fully respecting local market conditions and regulatory requirements.

The launch of BruHealth 5.0 marks the platform’s transition from an "information dissemination tool" to a "learning health ecosystem." The new system uses AI technology to analyze users’ behavioral patterns, such as diet, sleep, stress, and exercise, and dynamically adjusts health recommendations based on individual needs, shifting from a "one-size-fits-all" approach to a "personalized" one.

This technological approach addresses a core challenge in traditional public health: how to tailor health interventions to individual risks and lifestyles. Preliminary data show that AI-driven personalized recommendations are more effective in motivating user engagement and behavioral change than generic health education.

Of course, the application of AI in healthcare must adhere to ethical principles. Throughout its deployment, Yidu Tech has emphasized algorithm transparency, physician oversight of AI recommendations, and dynamic monitoring of potential biases to ensure fairness, transparency, and a people-centric approach. These measures represent new challenges as AI medical applications scale.

Yidu Tech’s technical architecture emphasizes "modular design and cross-regional adaptability." The platform can be quickly adjusted to suit different countries’ regulatory environments, cultural preferences, and infrastructure conditions, retaining core functionalities while supporting the migration and reuse of technological capabilities.

Looking ahead, Yidu Tech will build on the experience of developing the BruHealth platform to further advance cutting-edge applications such as precision public health, digital therapeutics, and AI-driven health insights. While enhancing technological sophistication, the company will continue to prioritize accessibility, ensuring that technological progress truly benefits the public and creates value, rather than creating barriers.

This aligns closely with the goals of the World Economic Forum’s "Digital Healthcare Transformation Initiative": the success of digital health transformation depends not on technological deployment itself but on the organic integration of intelligent systems with inclusive design and robust governance mechanisms. Truly valuable technological innovations are those that enhance healthcare system capabilities and benefit all populations.