GIZ and Digital Square partner with ministries of health to strengthen digital immunization tools for pandemic-resilient health systems
[Washington | June 7, 2023] The Deutsche Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit (GIZ) and PATH’s Digital Square initiative are partnering with ministries of health in Ghana, Malawi, and Tanzania to select and adapt digital tools to strengthen immunization systems through the Digital Innovation in Pandemic Control (DIPC) project. The project launched in November 2022 and will run through November 2024.
Countries face significant challenges when building digital immunization solutions. Fragmentation prohibits secure and interoperable data exchange across systems, and a lack of resources impedes local stakeholders from sustaining these systems and easily adapting to changing healthcare needs—as was the case during the COVID-19 pandemic. DIPC, through Digital Square, will address these existing challenges across Ghana, Malawi, and Tanzania by enhancing robust, nationally scalable, and interoperable digital immunization tools that result in more agile and efficient pandemic-prepared health systems.
Digital Square advances adaptable, replicable, and open source digital health global goods that seamlessly integrate into healthcare systems. Digital Square also works closely with governments to align digital transformation with country strategies to strengthen health workforce capacity at the community, facility, regional, and national levels. Digital Square is leveraging this expertise and experience to support Ghana, Malawi, and Tanzania to configure immunization product suites.
Product suites are defined as open source technologies and tools that are configured together to strengthen an entire functional health domain—such as immunization, antenatal care, etc.—by facilitating the secure exchange of appropriate data. Product suites leverage international guidance documents, such as the World Health Organization’s Digital Adaptation Kits (DAKs) and SMART Guidelines, so technologies and tools support adherence to clinical guidelines and improve the quality of health care delivery. To ensure sustainability, the DIPC project is working closely with ministries of health and plans to train select health workforce members on how to use the tools and technologies that comprise immunization product suites and on technical topics such as DAKs and SMART Guidelines.
“As countries advance their digital health systems, they need systematic approaches to enable them to develop or adopt and implement standards-based interoperable and scalable digital solutions and decision-support tools to support quality of care. To that end, it is important to strengthen local technical capacity on the SMART Guidelines so that digital solutions facilitate the provision of care that is aligned with clinical and public health guidelines and recommendations.”
The DIPC project is part of a larger consortium that GIZ actors from the field of digitalization and health, including the Digital Health Centre of Excellence (DICE) initiative co-led by United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) and the World Health Organization (WHO), launched in 2021 to bring digital health technical expertise to countries to create more pandemic-prepared health systems.
About Digital Square
Digital Square is a PATH-led initiative funded by the GIZ, the Rockefeller Foundation, the United States Agency for International Development (USAID), the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, and a consortium of other partners to advance digitally enabled health services around the world to help close the health equity gap. Since its inception in 2016, Digital Square has raised nearly $130M to catalyze a range of digital health investments in support of the adoption, adaptation, and scaling of interoperable digital technologies to improve global health equity. Digital Square’s coalitions, resources, and community of mature digital public goods for health (global goods) support large-scale, high-quality, sustainable implementations of digital health interventions.
About PATH
PATH is a global team of innovators working to eliminate health inequities so people, communities, and economies can thrive. We advise and partner with institutions, investors, and businesses of all sizes to solve the world’s most pressing health challenges. Because better health moves humanity forward.
About GIZ
The Deutsche Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit (GIZ) GmbH supports and implements cross-sector projects worldwide that promote innovative solutions and use data-empowered technologies. Particularly in low- and middle-income countries, digital transformation can break down barriers due to networking, improved communication possibilities, and access to knowledge—from allowing fair access to education, reducing poverty, and building resilient health systems.
Contacts:
Gracey Vaughn, Global Project Lead
gvaughn@path.org