Description of Session
As funding to strengthen digital health and health information systems (HIS) has grown over the past few years, so has the development of tools to assess where a country is on the journey to optimized digital health systems and HIS interoperability. Countries benefitting from external technical and financial assistance are encouraged to drive the agenda for this assistance by making the case for specific assistance needed. To do so, countries need tools that show where they are and what gaps exist as they strengthen their digital health systems and HIS. The Partner States of the East African Community (EAC) are at different stages of assessing their digital health systems and HIS interoperability. They intend to use the assessment results to improve the enabling environment for national- and regional-level HIS interoperability, promoting information sharing and nurturing the growth of information technology in the health sector. An assessment team of the MEASURE Evaluation project is using the HIS Interoperability Maturity Toolkit and the Global Digital Health Index—both global goods—to assess the enabling environment for digital health and interoperability among the EAC members. Presenters in this session will describe the lessons learned about the similarities and differences between these two assessment tools (including the methods used to implement them) and how those differences influence a country’s decision to adopt one or both tools. Next, presenters from several of the EAC countries that are assessing their digital health systems and HIS interoperability will describe how they have used (or plan to use) the results to strengthen digital health and HIS interoperability as well as their plans for monitoring the implementation of digital health and HIS interoperability. Additionally, the presenters and panelists will recommend ways to improve and align the two tools, based on their implementation experiences.
