Description of Session
Advancements in digital technology have provided ample opportunity for the health sector to share and use tools and other resources to build and sustain systems for high-quality health data. The creation and initial implementation of such resources is often an exciting time; however, challenges remain in ensuring that such collaboratively created resources continue to be curated and available to the global public after their incubation. This panel will explore the technical, financial, and practical aspects of this issue by presenting examples of current opportunities and challenges. Panelists: MEASURE Evaluation (Liz Millar) will discuss issues of sustainability from a project perspective. For years, the USAID-funded MEASURE Evaluation project has maintained a website dedicated to open access to global tools and resources for health information system (HIS) strengthening, such as the Interoperability Maturity Toolkit, and Stages of Continuous Improvement Toolkit. Now the project faces questions about how to ensure that these resources remain accessible to the public when the project closes in 2020. Digital Square (Maguette Ndong) will describe Digital Square’s commitment to reusable, adaptable technology solutions and the creation of an open-source hub for housing digital health resources. Using the DSpace instance, this hub will catalog resources from MEASURE Evaluation, the K4Health project, and the Global Digital Health Network. However, questions remain about how best to transfer and catalog resources and how to curate them to stay relevant, driving them to the right audiences and ensuring that efforts are not duplicated. USAID (Adele Waugaman) will discuss opportunities, challenges, and considerations in the creation and sustainment of global tools and resource for the digital health community, focusing on the example of sustaining the work of the Digital Health & Interoperability Working Group. As USAID supports countries in their journey to self-reliance, global public goods must remain widely accessible. Moderator: K4Health representative (TBD)
