Digital Health

12th ICT4D Conference

rgoodwin — Tue, 12 Mar 2024 13:43:52 +0000

12th ICT4D Conference rgoodwin March 12, 2024

March 18, 2024 - March 21, 2024

Highly interactive and hands-on, the multi-disciplinary event attracts a diverse audience of around 700 technical advisors and senior executives from public, private, and civil society organizations from across the humanitarian and international development community.

The global conference explores how Information Communication Technology for Development (ICT4D) and data innovations are making a measurable difference in millions of peoples’ lives and increases the impact of humanitarian relief, development and conservation projects.

https://www.ict4dconference.org/

Our Participation

Roundtable Discussion

GHECO: Global Health Emergency Corps Powered by iHRIS

Date(s):	March 19, 2024 04:00pm - 05:00pm GMT (12:00pm - 01:00pm EDT)
More Information:	Part of the breakout session: The Importance of Digital Public Infrastructure
Location:	Accra, Ghana
Presenter(s):	Jacodia Fransman, Data Scientist, IntraHealth International

Participants

Jacodia Fransman

Data Scientist, IntraHealth International

Digital Health Global health security

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Accra, Ghana

Uganda Sees Health Workforce Gains; Increases in Family Planning and Safe Deliveries at End of USAID Project

cbales — Mon, 19 Feb 2024 15:40:18 +0000

Uganda Sees Health Workforce Gains; Increases in Family Planning and Safe Deliveries at End of USAID Project cbales February 19, 2024 February 19, 2024

Between 2017 and 2023, Uganda strengthened its health workforce and systems, improved health services, and championed locally led development in collaboration with IntraHealth’s Regional Health Integration to Enhance Services in Eastern Uganda (RHITES-E) Activity.

Led by IntraHealth in partnership with The AIDS Support Organization (TASO), Communication for Development Foundation Uganda (CDFU), Malaria Consortium, and Medic, the USAID-funded project worked closely with the government at the national and local levels to expand access to high-quality health services. RHITES-E also supported Uganda’s response to the COVID-19 pandemic and an outbreak of Ebola Virus Disease and helped the Eastern region to be better prepared to respond to future threats through the establishment of public health emergency operations centers at the Mbale and Moroto Regional Referral Hospitals.

Focus on health systems strengthening

IntraHealth used health systems strengthening as its overarching approach for RHITES-E, building on strong collaborative relationships with districts, regional hospitals, health facilities, and communities, and fostering data-driven decision-making to strengthen local leadership in oversight of implementation. Key systems improvements include:

Through training and mentorships, built district capacity to use IntraHealth’s iHRIS human resources information system to guide health workforce planning, recruitment, deployment, and monitoring of attendance to duty. As a result, project districts used iHRIS data to fill 10,288 health worker positions, 76% of the approved positions in the region, while also reducing absenteeism.
Improved timely district reporting into the national health management information system from 67% to 91%, increased coverage of electronic medical records in antiretroviral therapy (ART) sites from 12% to 60%, and strengthened data quality and monitoring through digital health tools.
Strengthened laboratory services, including regular external quality assessments and faster turnaround times, leading to the first four labs in the region achieving international accreditation status.
Through mentorships, strengthened district capacity to coordinate supply chain management interventions to ensure availability, accessibility, and rational use of quality, affordable medicines and health supplies. Achievements included increasing the real-time ARV stock status weekly reporting rate from 13% to 61% from 2022-23 and maintaining multi-month dispensing of ARVs at 90% to reduce HIV clients’ need for clinic visits.

Integrated services for expanded access

Through a “whole of district” mindset, RHITES-E worked with district leaders, local partners, health workers, and community groups to expand access to health care in 30 districts in Eastern Uganda and Karamoja, home to over 7 million Ugandans. High-quality integrated services improved through the project encompass family planning; maternal, newborn, and child health; HIV/AIDS and tuberculosis; malaria; nutrition; and water, sanitation and hygiene. Highlights of results include:

Increased new users of family planning by 79%, from 249,351 to 447,169
Expanded users of long-acting and reversible contraception by 575%, from 47,059 to 317,726
Improved the percentage of women delivering their babies in a health facility from 57% to 81%
Achieved the 90% national target for childhood immunization through the essential program on immunization
Provided over 70,000 clients with ART for HIV
Achieved viral load coverage and suppression rates among ART clients of 98% and 93%, respectively
Increased the percentage of households with improved latrines (69% to 89%), safe drinking water (58% to 83%), and proper handwashing facilities (57% to 91%)
Through the Mbale Emergency Operations Center, implemented an intensive COVID-19 testing approach that improved result turnaround time from 14 days to 2 and achieved vaccination of 60% of the regional population by May 2023.

Engaging men in family planning

As part of RHITES-E, IntraHealth collaborated with ideas42 with funding from the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation on an initiative in six districts to improve the health and well-being of women of reproductive age, in particular by engaging the male partners of postpartum women in the benefits of child spacing. The “SupCap” project used a four-stage behavioral science methodology to co-design solutions with community members, including 1) an interactive game played by male partners of postpartum women, facilitated by village health teams; 2) a child spacing/referral card received by game participants to fill out with their partners and take to a health facility; and 3) text messages sent to game players, village health teams, and health workers. This project:

Reached over 20,500 male partners of postpartum women
Contributed to 61.5% of total postpartum family planning uptake in the six project districts
Tracked individuals who brought a child spacing planning card to the health facility: 100% received family planning counseling and 95% chose a method.

Transition to local partners

During its last two years, RHITES-E provided technical assistance in transitioning HIV service delivery to local implementing partners and family health services to the districts in alignment with IntraHealth’s and USAID’s focus on local capacity strengthening and locally led development. These local partners include Baylor Uganda, ANECCA, the Uganda Protestant Medical Bureau, and the Mbale and Moroto Regional Referral Hospitals, all of which received capacity development support from IntraHealth.

Resources

Uganda Country Brief

Family Planning Overview Brief

Uganda Family Planning & Reproductive Health HIV & AIDS Digital Health Health Workforce & SystemsA health worker in Uganda weighs a baby before administering immunizations at Nakaloke Health Center III in Mbale, Uganda. Photo by Esther Ruth Mbabazi for IntraHealth International.

Are We at the “End of the Beginning” for Global Digital Health? And What’s Next?

cbales — Wed, 29 Nov 2023 18:53:44 +0000

Are We at the “End of the Beginning” for Global Digital Health? And What’s Next? cbales November 29, 2023

November 29, 2023

To impact health outcomes, we still have challenges and opportunities to tackle.

After decades of sustained focus by the digital health community, global bodies like the WHO, UNICEF, and the World Bank, and many country governments have embraced digital transformation as a key driver for achieving universal health coverage. But that may just be the end of the beginning for global digital health—to enable digital transformation that impacts health outcomes, we still have major challenges to address:

The proliferation of innovative, but not interoperable, digital tools has arguably left eHealth in eChaos.
The global health workforce is facing a shortage of 10 million workers by 2030 and many in post are leaving due to systemic burnout.
The open source data systems we rely on to make data available for high value Artificial Intelligence (AI) use cases suffer from under-investment and weak business models.

What opportunities exist to better leverage data and what long-term investments should be made to enable high value data use cases? Read on to learn how we’re taking on these challenges and opportunities at IntraHealth.

Connect with us at the Global Digital Health Forum, December 4-7, to discuss how we can partner to achieve the future we want.

Answering the most impactful business questions often requires more than one database.

Let’s face it, a lot of reporting systems in global health are built for donor reporting or national government monitoring rather than improving local program implementation. One can argue this came about out of necessity as the development sector grew and regulatory control is essential. But now we have an opportunity to shift our perspective and re-use data to answer some of our most critical business questions.

IntraHealth implemented the USAID Regional Health Integration to Enhance Services in Eastern Uganda (RHITES-E) program from 2018-2023. We had a seemingly simple question: how many lay workers needed to be employed and could we dynamically redistribute their workload to improve retention? Our data science team had to merge four siloed databases to answer this question: data on the total staff by cadre at health facilities (PEPFAR HRH inventory), percent of those positions filled to proxy for workload (iHRIS), retention data and GPS locations of facilities (DHIS2), and the size of the cohort (DATIM High Frequency Reporting). We determined that if each lay worker had 50 clients they would have enough time to engage with them, helping to promote their long-term retention. Mapping the actual ratios let us see where we could redistribute workload. Since a lot of engagement is via phone, we could redistribute client lists without having to physically move any staff.

Having an internal data science team at IntraHealth has reduced the lead time from good ideas to great results. We have refined our approaches through several projects since 2019; you can read about our lessons learned from applying machine learning to messy, real-world data in LMICs here.

Generative AI can help cope with software developer and health worker shortages.

The world is not only facing a shortage of health workers. There is also a shortage of FHIR-literate software developers in global digital health—we don’t have estimates but anecdotally it is a lot.

At IntraHealth we’re excited about the opportunity created by large language models and generative AI like ChatGPT to support and upskill health workers and software developers who can help build FHIR-compliant global goods software. And the data from other industries is backing it up.

Early studies are showing that ChatGPT-like support for college-educated professionals and developers can help in two ways. When college-educated professionals were given a writing task and randomly assigned to use ChatGPT or not, those who used ChatGPT improved the quality of their work and reduced the time spent on the task. Interestingly, those with lower baseline scores improved their scores more while the benefit for more skilled professionals was to reduce time on the task and maintain high quality. Similarly at GitHub, their AI-based CoPilot boosted productivity of software developers by 55%!

What could this look like in a busy, understaffed inpatient nursing ward? We know that turnover among nurses is high due to systemic burnout caused by understaffing and lack of support. What if ChatGPT-style interventions could be that mentor providing support and advice for a young nurse who finds themselves alone in the inpatient ward before they’re ready? If she feels supported, maybe she’ll stay.

Come check out our presentation at GDHF where we’ll present the results of using ChatGPT to iterate on our iHRIS software. Monday, December 4, 1:30-2:45 pm in the Oakley Conference Room at the Bethesda North Marriot in Bethesda, MD. Full GDHF agenda is here.

The foundation of any AI use case is good data.

We’ve all heard the saying “garbage in, garbage out” to make the point that the data going into an AI model impacts the utility of the results you get out. Imagine you have a program delivering HIV care to clients in Uganda and you want to use electronic medical record (EMR) data to predict which clients are at risk for interrupting treatment.

How should you deal with inevitable missing data? If values are missing, it could be because the visit got cut short and the data didn’t get entered or some other reason that could be correlated to the outcome of missing an appointment. Some machine learning algorithms will automatically impute data but if the data is not missing at random, you should model the missingness and use it in the analysis (e.g., feature engineering).
How often should you update the model in production? When the results of the model can be pushed back to the EMR, this could be as easy as running the model at the beginning of each week. However, as you intervene with clients to reduce interruptions in treatment and those clients’ results go back into the model each week, the model’s accuracy can drift. Let’s say your intervention is successful and all 25-year-old males that got your intervention are less likely to interrupt. Is a 25-year-old male in your dataset now less likely to interrupt, or is the model learning from your intervention and becoming less accurate about typical 25-year-old males?
Can you make AI work in a paper-based world? EMRs may not be available during the visit for clinicians to check on the status of a client at risk for interruption in treatment and intervene. Can you create a paper-based tool that curates the model output into an assessment so that clinicians can evaluate clients sitting in front of them and provide support? Palindrome has had success doing that in South Africa.
Who ensures that global good open source software powering EMRs and other necessary tools is maintained? The EMRs we’re talking about are often open source software that is maintained at a loss by the original developers and without sufficient investment in security and maintenance, open source software can pose significant security risks. How can we ensure better coordination in the open source software space with sustainable business models?

IntraHealth is among a small group of companies working to develop AI models that can predict which HIV clients are going to interrupt in treatment before they do. You can read more about these efforts here and here.

Check out IntraHealth’s presentation at the GDHF to hear how we addressed these issues in the USAID-funded HIV Care & Treatment Project in Central America. Wednesday, December 6, 1-2 pm in the Forest Glen Conference Room at the Bethesda North Marriot in Bethesda, MD. Full GDHF agenda is here.

How do we solve some of these challenges?

1. Create a data use architecture plan for how data is going to be used

Any data scientist worth their salt will tell you that data science isn’t magic, it’s driven by good questions and good data. Projects can start today by assessing their monitoring and evaluation (M&E) data used for reporting (i.e., telling stakeholders what’s been done) and figuring out how to turn it into strategic information (i.e., telling program managers what to do next). Donors can work with implementers to reduce the burden of M&E reporting.

At IntraHealth, we call our overall approach to data use READI: Rapid, Efficient, and Data-Driven Implementation. READI’s guiding principles are real-time, granular, automated data; re-use of donor reporting and secondary data for implementation where possible; and working with governments to review their data and make decisions through a Data to Action (D2A) process.

In READI, we re-use as much donor reporting M&E data as possible for implementation. When the data we need isn’t an M&E indicator, we leverage free, publicly available secondary data (e.g., hyper-local 1x1 km estimates of socioeconomic and population indicators) to help increase the efficiency of our programs. We also engage with communities of practice to re-envision M&E data to support program implementation and have developed a standard set of indicators our projects can choose from for family planning, maternal and child health + nutrition, and non-communicable disease implementation.

2. Invest in open source software

You may have seen various versions of this image around the web. While many open source communities have created great enhancements to software over the years, the complexity and needs of the global goods community are often beyond what can be managed and maintained by volunteers. Better investment is needed in global goods to ensure that the software being provided is being maintained, incorporates standards, is secure, and evolves with advances in technology. This is particularly essential where reasonably priced, commercial alternatives do not exist.

3. Create markets for health information system (HIS) components

A fully functional HIS supports innovation and entrepreneurship by reducing transaction costs so that innovators can build technology able to leapfrog physical infrastructure barriers (like telemedicine apps) with APIs to high-quality health worker and facility lists maintained by a single, public entity. In a perfect world, governments would be able to implement a fully interoperable HIS already using existing architecture specifications like OpenHIE, and digital health sandboxes would allow entrepreneurs to easily introduce new innovations to the ecosystem. However, there are markets that are decades away from this model and there are transitional approaches that might be easier to achieve in the short-term. Markets could benefit today from middleware business to government (B2G), government to business (G2B), or business to business (B2B) models to build, maintain, and license the registries needed to build telemedicine apps to innovators rather than each innovator building and verifying their own. What other opportunities are there for B2G, G2B, or B2B use cases that can support public health? And what non-traditional funders (e.g., health tech investors) might be interested in starting up middleware companies to create the market needed to make health tech profitable? Read more in our blog.

By Amy Finnegan

Deputy director of data science

By Olivia Vélez

Former chief digital health officer

Digital Health Global Digital Health Forum

Is In The Media

A health worker uses a tablet at Hospital Puertos Barrios in Izabal, Guatemala. Photo by Anna Watts for IntraHealth International.

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Want to Unleash Pent Up Health Tech Innovation in Africa? Invest in Health Worker and Facility Registries

cbales — Wed, 04 Oct 2023 14:43:00 +0000

Want to Unleash Pent Up Health Tech Innovation in Africa? Invest in Health Worker and Facility Registries cbales October 04, 2023

October 04, 2023

IntraHealth's Amy Finnegan and Olivia Vélez explain how investing in digital public infrastructure like health worker and facility registries can accelerate health tech startups.

Earlier this year, IntraHealth International connected with a company that’s using artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning to dynamically redistribute the health workforce in Liberia. We quickly got into the weeds—how are you setting it up and how much does it cost? No surprise, it’s like any data science project—80% of the work is wrangling the data. In this case, the firm had to create a list of all the health facilities and the providers working at those facilities and their training and skillset—using available, messy data and at times visiting health facilities to collect data from scratch—before they could even begin to use AI.

Registries are an essential building block of a health information system.

It wasn’t long before we realized the startup had created their own custom health worker and facility registry. What’s a registry? Registries are an essential building block of a health information system. Simply put, they are lists of entities that have been verified with some criteria. However, registries don’t get the attention they deserve. Let’s see how integral they are to the health tech ecosystem in Africa.

Health tech investing in Africa has reached over half a billion dollars in the last 18 months according to a 2023 report from Briter Bridges. Telemedicine companies are leading the pack—and registries are critical to a telemedicine startup in the same way they were critical to the AI company redistributing health workers in Liberia. When a client connects with a health worker virtually, they may need a referral to another provider or to a pharmacy nearby to pick up a prescription. Behind the scenes is a registry of health care providers, pharmacies, and in stock medicines, and if it’s a repeat customer a client registry can help identify existing prescriptions and any interactions.

Just like that, telemedicine has leapfrogged infrastructure barriers to health care access in Africa—but not without registries.

A customized registry could cost between $100-300k.

Like any startup, a telemedicine startup needs to generate revenue quickly with limited funding runways and most startups never get past the early stages if they cannot generate revenue. If there is no national registry, having to create a customized registry could cost between $100-300k and require ongoing maintenance of between $10-40k per month, depending on the scope and scale. If a startup dies, its custom-built registry dies with it.

Established national registries not only reduce the startup costs and barriers to entry but can accelerate the time from startup to revenue generation when companies can pour money into reducing customer acquisition costs (CAC) rather than recreating and updating registries for their own use. A market with an up-to-date and well-maintained health worker, facility, and client registry can lower startup costs and potentially attract new investors to fund innovation in these markets.

Open source global good software is on the shelf and ready to be implemented.

The great thing about registries is that the global health community has produced guidelines for developing and maintaining facility, health worker, and client registries, and open source global good software is on the shelf and ready to be implemented. IntraHealth has developed and maintains three canonical, open source, and standards-based registry tools. iHRIS is a health worker registry that stores information on health workers across a health system, including their demographics, training, and certifications; GOFR, the Global Open Facility Registry, is a tool that allows facility reconciliation and the creation of a master list of facilities; and OpenCR is a privacy preserving client registry tool. At scale, registries built on such open source tools could power tomorrow’s health tech growth in Africa but not without further investment and governance.

Why not develop and maintain registries through a B2B, business-to-business, model? Venture capitalists could consider funding an NGO, or a social enterprise based in a low- or middle-income country, to enter the market and maintain an application programming interface (API) to an up-to-date and well-maintained health worker and facility registry. Startups could pay a fee to the company rather than recreating the list each time, customers could be assured that they are getting referrals to the most qualified individuals, and the government could have access to the data for free.

With national health worker and facility registries, promising health tech innovations we haven’t even thought of yet could have a running start at revenue generation.

By Amy Finnegan

Deputy director of data science

By Olivia Vélez

Former chief digital health officer

Digital Health Africa

Is In The Media

At Sengerema Health Center in Tanzania, Neema Gwidu reviews a patient's information. Photo by Rashid Hamis Kindamba for IntraHealth International

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How Can Nurses Support Digital Health and Vice Versa?

cbales — Wed, 13 Sep 2023 17:08:25 +0000

How Can Nurses Support Digital Health and Vice Versa? cbales September 13, 2023

September 13, 2023

Seven questions for Olivia Vélez, nurse, developer, and IntraHealth’s chief digital health officer.

Digital health is key for achieving universal health coverage and equitably responding to pandemics—both on the agenda for the UN General Assembly this month.

I sat down with Olivia Vélez, IntraHealth International’s chief digital health officer and part of our delegation heading to UNGA. She’s a registered nurse and holds a PhD in nursing informatics, in addition to master's degrees in information systems and public health. She shared how digital health can support nurses and other health workers, and how as a nurse she’s advancing digital health innovation.

1. What drove you to study and pursue both nursing and tech?

In undergrad I double majored in computer science and neuroscience. After I graduated, all my jobs as a software developer or database developer were in the health sector, at community health centers or health insurance companies.

One day I was working with nurses, developing a mobile tool for them to do quality assurance audits, and I thought I'd do a better job at this if I was a nurse and I really understood what they needed. So I decided to go to nursing school, with the idea that I would focus on nursing informatics and community health.

2: How are you using your background in nursing in your current role as chief digital health officer at IntraHealth?

I understand what nursing challenges are, and I bring that view and wisdom to how we design our digital health tools and how we implement them. I also understand what it’s like to be a new nurse and feel alone on your first shift, or during your first month of working. In a lot of the countries we work in, nurses are assigned to rural clinics where they're working by themselves without a lot of supervision, and there’s a shortage of nurse mentors and more experienced nurses because of brain drain and the overall health workforce shortage.

I understand what it’s like to be a new nurse and feel alone .

So I bring my nursing experience to the forefront and think, how can we help nurses move along the path from being a novice nurse to being an expert? How can we build their confidence and ensure they stay in the field?

My knowledge applies to other kinds of health workers too. I know that stress when you don't have the resources or the support you need. So I always look for solutions with technology and even what we can do with artificial intelligence (AI) to support mentorship, development, and growth.

3. What do you think is unique about IntraHealth's approach to digital health? What are you working on that you are excited about?

IntraHealth has primarily focused on digital health tools that are supportive infrastructure for health systems at the national level. iHRIS tracks all health workers in the country, and Open Client Registry (Open CR) safely links patient information between different databases for continuity of care. Facility Match helps ministries, as well as donors and implementing partners, create and maintain master lists of all the health facilities in the country, and eliminate duplication.

We focus a lot on interoperability, so different information systems can share important information. And, if local entrepreneurs build mobile health tools, for example, they can be integrated. We also focus on making sure our software is safe and secure.

I'm personally really excited about the work we're doing with machine learning and predictive analytics, like how we're using iHRIS for health workforce planning—from day-to-day to redistribution of health workers to respond to an emergency or pandemic. And also our thought leadership around building a culture of data use. When we implement our tools we think, you're collecting all this data, what are you actually going to do with it? How is it going to help decision-makers improve health workforce planning or access to quality health services?

4: Nursing is a woman-dominated field, and digital health is dominated by men. Have you had to overcome any gender-related challenges in your career?

The general challenge a lot of women face in this field is the constant need to prove our technical expertise. Because most people know I'm a nurse, they don't realize I worked as a software developer for ten years, so I don't need the technical side dumbed down for me. Other women I’ve talked to have faced that as well, even if they have engineering degrees, etc.

It's important to have gender representation in the design and development of tools.

To address this, we created and held a Women in Global Digital Health Leadership Workshop last December before the Global Digital Health Forum [Vélez is cochair of the Global Digital Health Network, which hosts the forum]. We talked about the common challenges we face and formed a network of women to continue to discuss these issues and find solutions. Because it's important to have gender representation in the design and development of tools, and we want to make sure that tools are implemented with a gender equity lens. There's still a big gap in the digital divide, and diversity is important. We're planning to host another workshop this December to follow up on last year's success.

5: What advice would you give to other women, particularly nurses in low- and middle-income countries, interested in digital health?

Digital health is a broad field with a lot of different specialties. You could be a solutions architect, a software engineer, a data scientist. So number one is to explore which aspect of digital health interests you. There are a lot of free Google or Microsoft online courses that can help you learn more about a particular area. If you’re interested in privacy and security, Google has a whole privacy and security track that you could take and get a good understanding.

The International Council of Nurses has competencies for nurses interested in nursing informatics. In a few years the World Health Organization will release a digital health competency framework for health workers. Many people from IntraHealth have participated in the early stages of the development of those competencies, with low- and middle-income countries in mind. Africa CDC has a flagship initiative that we're also participating in to build digital health capacity within the African Union. And along with that we can expect to see programs and courses coming out to help nurses gain the skills they need.

6: What suggestions do you have for donors or policymakers to advance digital health?

Donors and policymakers should invest in building digital health capacity for health workers. As more health workers have skills in digital health, they can better contribute to the design of tools, as an end user in the user-centered design process, or in leading the design and implementation of tools.

Invest in building digital health capacity for health workers.

They should also continue to invest in open source tools, like iHRIS, so there's funding to continue core development, and to use the best technology possible, while still keeping the implementation and the total cost of ownership low for countries.

7: You’ll be attending the UN General Assembly next week. What are you listening for that could impact digital health?

I'm looking forward to the discussions on health data governance led by Transform Health. That's a big deal this year especially. IntraHealth signed on to several statements around the health data governance principles. It’s really important to make sure the health workers and patients we are including in digital health systems around the world are protected and afforded the same rights with regard to the privacy of and use of their data. We are responsible for making sure that the digital health tools we implement, and the data that goes in them, are used to improve quality of care and achieve universal health coverage.

Follow Olivia Vélez:

At UNGA, Olivia Vélez will speak at a roundtable, Accelerating equitable digital innovations for women's reproductive health, on September 19 hosted by Dalberg and Resolve Global Health.
In October, Vélez will join the 2023 Class of Fellows of the American Academy of Nursing. She’ll be recognized for her outstanding impact on health and health care at the Academy’s annual Health Policy Conference on October 5-7 in Washington, DC.
Connect with her on Linked In at https://www.linkedin.com/in/oliviavelez/.

By Carol Bales

Strategic communications manager

By Olivia Vélez

Former chief digital health officer

Digital Health Health workforce development Policy & Advocacy UN General Assembly Nurses

Is In The Media

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78th United Nations General Assembly

cbales — Thu, 07 Sep 2023 17:24:57 +0000

78th United Nations General Assembly cbales September 07, 2023

September 12, 2023 - September 25, 2023

IntraHealth International is joining the 78th United Nations General Assembly to highlight the critical role of health workers in achieving universal health coverage (UHC), implementing the Sustainable Development Goals, building climate resilient health systems, ensuring an equitable response to health emergencies, ending tuberculosis (TB), and more.

We'll urge global leaders to make coordinated commitments to better support and protect the global health workforce, including during the High-Level Meetings on Health and in Political Declarations on UHC; Pandemic Preparedness, Prevention, and Response; and TB.

Read a new Q&A with our Chief Digital Health Officer Olivia Vélez, and find out what she'll be listening for during #UNGA78:
How Can Nurses Support Digital Health and Vice Versa?

Rebuilding trust and reigniting global solidarity: Accelerating action on the 2030 Agenda and its Sustainable Development Goals towards peace, prosperity, progress and the sustainability for all.

Our Participation

Side Events

Innovations in Access: How to Expand Our Healthcare Workforce Through Diverse Community Stakeholders 

Date(s):	September 18, 2023 02:30pm - 04:00pm EDT
More Information:	More than 150 countries have a shortage of nurses and midwives, and 130 countries report a shortage of physicians. Lay health workers, such as community health workers, doulas, birth attendants, and others have the potential to transform health systems and address workforce gaps. To mitigate the detrimental impact of this labor shortage, we must integrate all health worker roles into health care systems and pay them a living wage.  This Spotlight Session is part of the Clinton Global Initiative annual meeting and will be livestreamed.
Location:	Murray Hill Room, New York Hilton Midtown, 1335 6th Ave, New York, NY 10019
Presenter(s):	Yadira Villaseñor

Accelerating equitable digital innovations for women's reproductive health

Date(s):	September 19, 2023 02:30pm - 04:30pm EDT
More Information:	Dalberg and Resolve Global Health are hosting a luncheon and roundtable to collaboratively discuss how to accelerate equitable digital innovations for women’s reproductive health. It will bring together stakeholders from a range of industries including health care, technology, policy, and advocacy, to explore strategies and collaborations for ensuring equitable and scalable digital solutions.
Presenter(s):	Olivia Vélez

Private Roundtable

Aligning Our Advocacy: Addressing the Global Health Workforce Shortage

Date(s):

September 19, 2023 03:00pm - 05:00pm EDT

More Information:

The Frontline Health Workers Coalition; Catholic Medical Mission Board (CMMB); Global Alliance for Surgical, Obstetric, Trauma and Anaesthesia Care (G4 Alliance); Living Goods; Rabin Martin; and Smile Train are hosting this closed-door roundtable discussion for civil society and health systems leaders to address the global health workforce shortage. Through facilitated discussion, the group will prioritize key challenges and opportunities for collective action and commit to a collaboration plan. Maqsoda Maqsodi will represent IntraHealth International in this important conversation.

Participants

Maqsoda Maqsodi

President and CEO

Olivia Vélez

Chief digital health officer

Yadira Villaseñor

Chief of party, Central America HIV Care and Treatment Project and regional director, Central America

Digital Health Health workforce development Policy & Advocacy Clinton Global Initiative

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New York, NY

International Maternal Newborn Health Conference

ihadmin2 — Mon, 17 Apr 2023 15:10:48 +0000

International Maternal Newborn Health Conference ihadmin2 April 17, 2023

May 08, 2023 - May 11, 2023

The International Maternal Newborn Health Conference marks a pivotal moment as we get closer to 2030, the end date of globally agreed upon goals for maternal and newborn health and prevention of stillbirths. IMNHC will convene the maternal newborn health community to drive urgent action for the health of mothers and newborns by collaborating and fostering strong connections, exchanging the most effective tools, sharing best practices and evidence, and investing in proven interventions.

Aligning TOGETHER. Accelerating TOGETHER. Saving lives TOGETHER.

AlignMNH Secretariat

International Maternal Newborn Health Conference | #IMNCH2023

Our Participation

Panel Discussions

New research and program learning from Rwanda

Date(s):	May 09, 2023 11:00am - 12:15pm SAST (05:00am - 06:15am EDT)
More Information:	Two IntraHealth experts will participate in this panel discussion. Kathryn Mimno will deliver a presentation, "Factors associated with labor companionship in Rwanda." Assumpta Kayinamura Mwali will deliver two presentations, "Factors influencing delivery of the recommended service package for first antenatal care visit in Rwanda—a mixed method study" and "Reducing missed opportunities for first ANC visits through linkage of general OPD to ANC services in rural Rwanda."
Location:	Daisy Room
Presenter(s):	Kathryn Mimno and Assumpta Kayinamura Mwali

Every woman everywhere has a right to quality care: Addressing quality gaps in humanitarian settings

Date(s):	May 11, 2023 01:55pm - 02:55pm SAST (07:55am - 08:55am EDT)
More Information:	Onikepe Owolabi will be a panelist during this session and will deliver a presentation, "Improving referral outcomes in eastern Uganda through a social media digital platform."
Location:	Room 1.41-1.42
Presenter(s):	Onikepe Owolabi

Comment améliorer l’accès et l’adhésion aux soins pour une expérience positive de la grossesse (en français)

Date(s):	May 11, 2023 01:55pm - 02:55pm SAST (07:55am - 08:55am EDT)
More Information:	Marguerite Ndour will be a panelist during this session and will deliver a presentation, "Intégrer les soins maternels, néonatals, infantiles, nutrition et planification familiale en Afrique francophone occidentale augmente la résilience à COVID-19 et la couverture universelle en saisissant les opportunités d'offre de services."
Location:	Auditorium 2
Presenter(s):	Marguerite Ndour

Expanding maternal and perinatal death surveillance and response (MPDSR) as a holistic quality improvement (QI) approach to accelerate saving maternal and newborn lives

Date(s):	May 11, 2023 03:15pm - 04:00pm SAST (09:15am - 10:00am EDT)
More Information:	Kathryn Mimno will be a moderator and Assumpta Kayinamura Mwali will be a panelist during this MOMENTUM Safe Surgery in Family Planning and Obstetrics thematic session.
Location:	Daisy Room
Presenter(s):	Kathryn Mimno and Assumpta Kayinamura Mwali

Poster Presentation

To what extent are maternal and child health, family planning, and nutrition services integrated in the national-level policies in Burkina Faso, Cote d’Ivoire, and Niger?

Date(s):	May 10, 2023 01:05pm - 02:05pm SAST (07:05am - 08:05am EDT)
Presenter(s):	Isabelle Bicaba

Participants

Robert Bambara

Monitoring, evaluation, and learning officer, INSPiRE

Isabelle Bicaba

Family planning/maternal and newborn health specialist, INSPiRE

Kathryn Mimno

Senior technical advisor

Assumpta Kayinamura Mwali

Deputy chief of party/Technical director, Ingobyi Activity, Rwanda

Marguerite Ndour

Project director, INSPiRE

Onikepe Owolabi

Senior global technical director for family planning and maternal, newborn, and child health

Fatoumata Tounkara

Monitoring, evaluation, research, and learning officer, Mali

Burkina Faso Côte d’Ivoire Nigeria Rwanda Uganda Maternal, Newborn, & Child Health Digital Health

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Cape Town, South Africa

Local Partnership Launches Digital Health Tool to Decrease Hypertension in Senegal

ihadmin2 — Thu, 16 Mar 2023 18:29:38 +0000

Local Partnership Launches Digital Health Tool to Decrease Hypertension in Senegal ihadmin2 March 16, 2023 March 08, 2023

Saytu Tension—a suite of digital solutions that will help accelerate early detection, linkage to care, and follow-up among hypertensive patients in Senegal—launched on January 27 in Dakar.

As part of the CARDIO4Dakar project, funded by the Novartis Foundation and implemented by IntraHealth International in partnership with the Senegalese Ministry of Health and Social Action, Saytu Tension (“check your blood pressure” in Wolof) will amplify existing efforts to reach more people with information about cardiovascular risk factors, such as hypertension, and help link clients to diagnosis and health services.

With funding from the Novartis Foundation’s Health Tech Hub, CARDIO4Dakar issued a call for innovative digital tools that could address challenges along a client’s journey, including helping people know their status (for access to early and efficient care) and reduce the risk of cardiovascular complications. Seventeen ideas were submitted and Senegalese-based startup BAAMTU Technologies, in collaboration with the marketing agency ByFilling, was selected in December 2022 to work with CARDIO4Dakar and partners. BAAMTU is a digital solutions and artificial intelligence provider with experience in the digital health sector. Previously, it helped the Ministry of Health and Social Action in Sénégal respond to COVID-19 and the Hôpital Universtaire de Genève on a hemophilia project. Now, BAAMTU will help develop the necessary tools and implement Saytu Tension by June 2023.

Saytu Tension includes four components:

A bilingual (French and Wolof) chatbot
An application for patient follow-up (alerts for taking medication, appointment reminders, analysis records)
A web application for client data
A website to raise public awareness of hypertension.

Project partners from the Senegal division of noncommunicable diseases, BAAMTU, ByFilling, IntraHealth, and Novartis Foundation at the Saytu Tension launch in January 2023 at the Radisson Blu in Dakar, Senegal. Photo by Mme Oulimata Sene.

The Saytu Tension launch in January 2023 at the Radisson Blu in Dakar, Senegal. Photo by Melanie Joiner for IntraHealth International.

The Saytu Tension launch in January 2023 at the Radisson Blu in Dakar, Senegal. Photo by Mme Oulimata Sene.

Globally, noncommunicable diseases like hypertension cause 74% of deaths. In Senegal, 45% of deaths are related to noncommunicable diseases and 17% of those deaths are attributable to cardiovascular disease. This new digital tool provides a multi-platform and multi-channel solution for the Senegalese population and health workers to better detect and manage hypertension. It will help reduce the incidence of death from high blood pressure by:

Reaching 150,000 people with awareness and education messages
Providing 100,000 clients with health services
Diagnosing 20,000 clients with high blood pressure
Following up with 12,000 clients who have been diagnosed.

CARDIO4Dakar launched in April 2022, with the objective to reduce the number of acute cardiovascular events in adults in Dakar by 10% by 2024 and promote data-driven approaches, drawn from digital health, to improve the health of urban populations. It is part of the CARDIO4Cities suite of projects, which have been implemented in Dakar, Sao Paulo, and Ho Chi Minh City. The project follows IntraHealth’s Better Hearts Better Cities initiative from 2017-2020.

To learn more about CARDIO4Cities, visit the Novartis Foundation's website here.

Senegal Noncommunicable Diseases Digital Health CARDIO4Dakar

New COVID-19 Trackers in South Sudan Will Help Manage the Next Disease Outbreak

ihadmin2 — Fri, 13 Jan 2023 19:36:54 +0000

New COVID-19 Trackers in South Sudan Will Help Manage the Next Disease Outbreak ihadmin2 January 13, 2023

December 14, 2022

Developed and pilot tested by IntraHealth, the new District Health Information System module streamlines surveillance and COVID-19 vaccination tracking in the country.

South Sudan has experienced numerous disease outbreaks before and after its independence in 2011, which have ranged from mild to severe. The South Sudan Ministry of Health continues to face several challenges managing and providing timely responses to emerging health threats.

An underlying reason for this is the country’s shortage of health workers at the national and subnational levels. This is compounded by an untrained health workforce and a lack of data for informed decision-making. Many health workers don’t have up-to-date training and cannot provide high-quality health care while information management processes can’t provide enough data for health workers to effectively manage disease outbreaks.

Over 68% of the health workers that manage data and information at national and subnational levels are volunteers. Over 72% of the counties transmitting pandemic and health management information system (HMIS) data have limited internet connectivity and unstable power. There is also a scarcity of functional hardware (computers and accessories) at the county and facility level to support timely data collection and use.

When COVID-19 began to spread, South Sudan invested in better surveillance and vaccine systems to help manage the country's pandemic response. IntraHealth International partnered with the Ministry of Health to provide financial and technical support to deploy the new District Health Information System 2 (DHIS2) Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19) surveillance, vaccination, and Adverse Events Following Immunization (AEFI) trackers. The trackers were designed to collect COVID-19 data in the country, inform surveillance and vaccination reporting, and facilitate travel during the pandemic.

"This will streamline COVID-19 vaccine data collection and reporting."

IntraHealth developed, customized, and deployed the DHIS2 vaccination tracker for pilot testing in 16 health facilities in Juba County, in partnership with the Ministry of Health and with support from the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The tracker captures individual-level vaccination data and generates electronic vaccination certificates with quick response (QR) codes. It also allows for real-time monitoring of daily vaccinations in health facilities, which helps measure COVID-19 vaccine uptake in the country.

“With the launch of this new tracker, we’re focused on highlighting the key achievements associated with the system,” says Alfred Okiria, the project director for the Strengthening National Capacity for Integrated HIV/AIDS Health Data Collection, Use, and Dissemination in Support of an Evidence-based Response in South Sudan project. “The electronic vaccination certificate is particularly helpful and has allowed South Sudanese and non-South Sudanese citizens to travel during the pandemic.”

Working with the Health Information Systems Program (HISP) Tanzania, IntraHealth trained 87 data clerks and rolled out the system at the national and subnational levels.

South Sudan now has a national surveillance system and a vaccination tracker system.

“Now that we’ve launched the DHIS2 COVID-19 tracker, we’re looking forward to integrating it into health facilities around the country,” Okiria says. “This will streamline COVID-19 vaccine data collection and reporting and provides an excellent model for other countries who are looking to roll out similar digital health tools during the pandemic.”

Our strategy

To design and deploy the surveillance and vaccine trackers, IntraHealth used a variety of approaches:

Reviewed and updated data collection and reporting tools.
Customized, reviewed, tested, and deployed the DHIS2 system in collaboration with the Ministry of Health and critical partners (World Health Organization, ICAP, and Médecins Sans Frontières).
Trained data clerks from the six pillars of COVID-19 response (call center, rapid response team, laboratory, case management, home-based care, and point of entry for international arrivals).
Provided routine mentorship and coaching for the data management workforce and addressed emerging issues.
Procured 195 tablet computers to facilitate real-time data collection, reporting, and use at the national and subnational levels.
Provided monthly internet plans to data clerks to facilitate data uploads on the DHIS2 system.
Seconded 16 data clerks to selected facilities for data collection and reporting.
Printed and distributed data collection tools for paper-based data capture at facility and community levels.
Conducted routine supportive supervision visits and onsite technical support and mentorship to identify facilities that needed support.

Where we are now

South Sudan now has a national surveillance system and a vaccination tracker system, which replaced the old fragmented and parallel data reporting systems for emerging outbreaks. The systems can provide real-time data for decision-making and timely responses to emerging threats. The country has built health workers’ skills in using the incidence management system to respond to emergencies. It has adopted digitalization of data management and promoted a culture of data use. And the mentorship and coaching support have created a culture of continuous learning around data management to drive evidence-based decision-making on national pandemics within the country.

By Acaga Taban Ismail

Former strategic information manager, IntraHealth International

Infectious Diseases COVID-19 Digital Health Global health security

Photos

Vital Thumbnail Image

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Data Science at IntraHealth

ihadmin2 — Fri, 13 Jan 2023 18:52:24 +0000

Data Science at IntraHealth 2022 ihadmin2 January 13, 2023

Stronger program performance. Greater impact. Healthier countries. From start to finish, IntraHealth’s programs use data science to drive lasting results. Learn more about how IntraHealth uses data science to take donor funding further in this overview brief.

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Topics Digital Health Technology Health Workforce & Systems

Digital Health

12th ICT4D Conference

Our Participation

Roundtable Discussion

GHECO: Global Health Emergency Corps Powered by iHRIS

Participants

Jacodia Fransman

Uganda Sees Health Workforce Gains; Increases in Family Planning and Safe Deliveries at End of USAID Project

Focus on health systems strengthening

Integrated services for expanded access

Engaging men in family planning

Transition to local partners

Resources

Uganda Country Brief

Family Planning Overview Brief

Are We at the “End of the Beginning” for Global Digital Health? And What’s Next?

Answering the most impactful business questions often requires more than one database.

Generative AI can help cope with software developer and health worker shortages.

The foundation of any AI use case is good data.

How do we solve some of these challenges?

Want to Unleash Pent Up Health Tech Innovation in Africa? Invest in Health Worker and Facility Registries

How Can Nurses Support Digital Health and Vice Versa?

1. What drove you to study and pursue both nursing and tech?

2: How are you using your background in nursing in your current role as chief digital health officer at IntraHealth?

3. What do you think is unique about IntraHealth's approach to digital health? What are you working on that you are excited about?

4: Nursing is a woman-dominated field, and digital health is dominated by men. Have you had to overcome any gender-related challenges in your career?

5: What advice would you give to other women, particularly nurses in low- and middle-income countries, interested in digital health?

6: What suggestions do you have for donors or policymakers to advance digital health?

7: You’ll be attending the UN General Assembly next week. What are you listening for that could impact digital health?

78th United Nations General Assembly

Read a new Q&A with our Chief Digital Health Officer Olivia Vélez, and find out what she'll be listening for during #UNGA78: How Can Nurses Support Digital Health and Vice Versa?

Our Participation

Side Events

Innovations in Access: How to Expand Our Healthcare Workforce Through Diverse Community Stakeholders

Accelerating equitable digital innovations for women's reproductive health

Private Roundtable

Aligning Our Advocacy: Addressing the Global Health Workforce Shortage

Participants

Maqsoda Maqsodi

Olivia Vélez

Yadira Villaseñor

International Maternal Newborn Health Conference

Our Participation

Panel Discussions

New research and program learning from Rwanda

Every woman everywhere has a right to quality care: Addressing quality gaps in humanitarian settings

Comment améliorer l’accès et l’adhésion aux soins pour une expérience positive de la grossesse (en français)

Expanding maternal and perinatal death surveillance and response (MPDSR) as a holistic quality improvement (QI) approach to accelerate saving maternal and newborn lives

Poster Presentation

To what extent are maternal and child health, family planning, and nutrition services integrated in the national-level policies in Burkina Faso, Cote d’Ivoire, and Niger?

Participants

Robert Bambara

Isabelle Bicaba

Kathryn Mimno

Assumpta Kayinamura Mwali

Marguerite Ndour

Onikepe Owolabi

Fatoumata Tounkara

Local Partnership Launches Digital Health Tool to Decrease Hypertension in Senegal

New COVID-19 Trackers in South Sudan Will Help Manage the Next Disease Outbreak

Our strategy

Where we are now

Photos

Data Science at IntraHealth

Read a new Q&A with our Chief Digital Health Officer Olivia Vélez, and find out what she'll be listening for during #UNGA78:
How Can Nurses Support Digital Health and Vice Versa?

Innovations in Access: How to Expand Our Healthcare Workforce Through Diverse Community Stakeholders 