Philippines joins HealthAI Global Regulatory Network

The Philippines has become a member of the HealthAI Global Regulatory Network (GRN), a Geneva-based international platform that brings together health regulators to coordinate the governance of artificial intelligence in healthcare.

HealthAI – The Global Agency for Responsible AI in Health, which oversees the network, described the Philippines as a “pioneer country” of the GRN. Pioneer countries are defined as early adopters committed to advancing the maturity of their regulatory systems for AI in health, with a view to ensuring the safety and effectiveness of AI solutions.

The Philippines enters the network alongside the UK, Singapore, India, Brazil, Indonesia, Peru, Zambia, and Vietnam.

The GRN functions as a platform for inter-country collaboration, knowledge sharing, and the identification of best practices, as well as an early warning system for adverse events. Members gain access to a global repository of registered AI-related health solutions.

The country brings established experience in health digitisation to the arrangement. National initiatives include a Standards and Interoperability Lab designed to enable patient-centric care, and infrastructure for Health Information Exchange to link health facilities. The Philippines advanced to Phase 4 maturity in 2024 on the Global Digital Health Monitor, above the global average of Phase 3.

The Department of Health has framed the membership as a vehicle for accelerating the country’s digital health transformation, with an emphasis on connecting underserved populations to care and equipping providers with data-driven tools. Officials have also pointed to the long-term ambition of extending healthcare access to remote areas as population growth continues.

HealthAI, for its part, has positioned the collaboration as a mechanism for capacity building and knowledge exchange, with patient safety as a central concern alongside the broader goal of equitable access to AI-powered health innovation.

Acknowledged challenges remain. Obstacles to applying AI at scale in the health sector include data standardisation, interoperability across fragmented health systems, and the infrastructure required to support large-scale AI applications — issues the Philippines hopes to address by drawing on the collective expertise of GRN members.