Mapping out a digital health strategy in Kenya
By: Samuel Wambugu, Carolyn Kamasaka, and Margaret Ndisha Mwakala
The review meeting for the second draft of Kenya’s digital health strategy was held in September 2024. Photo: Margaret Ndisha Mwakala/PATH.
A digital health strategy acts as a roadmap to achieve digital health goals through a coordinated effort. At a national level, a robust digital health strategy is essential for the national health system and healthcare organizations to effectively harness the power of technology to deliver high-quality care to all populations in the country.
But how does a country develop a digital health strategy?
In Kenya, PATH is working with the Ministry of Health (MOH) and other partners to develop the costed Kenya Digital Health Strategy 2025-2028 with support from the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s Technical Assistance Platform (CDC TAP). The need for a digital health strategy arises from Kenya’s commitment to digital health under the leadership of the MOH Directorate of Digital Health, Informatics, Policy and Research and with input from stakeholders across Kenya’s digital health ecosystem.
This effort involves a comprehensive stakeholder identification process, expansive consultative meetings with the various digital health stakeholders working at both the national and county levels, and an in-depth review of strategies from other countries, regions, and global health organizations. By undertaking this iterative process, PATH and the MOH seek to ensure that the strategy will align with Kenya’s current digital health ecosystem as well as regional and global health digital health standards.
Getting the right people at the table
As a first step in the strategy development process, the MOH Directorate of Digital Health, Informatics, Policy, and Research (DHIPR) engaged key stakeholders and appointed a steering committee to ensure oversight and provide direction. The committee appointed a technical team to categorize all digital health stakeholders in Kenya according to their primary purpose and affiliation, potential role and responsibility in digital health policy development, level of commitment to support the activities, availability of resources, and any potential constraints to participation. With this information, the team developed a communication matrix that would be followed throughout the development process considering every stakeholder's unique contribution and their availability for the participatory process.
The first digital health strategy consultative writing workshop was held in May 2024. Photo: Sam Wambugu/PATH.
The development of the digital health strategy is rooted in the Principles for Digital Development, which include understanding the ecosystem, designing with people, and designing for inclusion. In line with this, the MOH DHIPR developed an engagement plan informed by the stakeholder comprehensive matrix. Using this matrix, the MOH invited key members of organizations representing digital health stakeholders in Kenya to a consultative writing workshop in May 2024. This process helped ensure that every stakeholder felt included and could see their role and responsibility in the digital health implementation in Kenya.
Aligning with global and regional strategies
To further inform the strategy development process, the team reviewed global digital health strategies from international Organizations such as the World Health Organization, African Centres for Disease Control and Prevention (Africa CDC), US CDC, US Agency for International Development (USAID), and The Global Fund. In addition, the team compared digital health strategies from Malawi, Tanzania, and Uganda to distill learnings and draw insights. The key takeaways from the comparison include:
Government ownership: Government involvement in the process of developing the strategies helps ensure full ownership of the strategy and its implementation.
Annual implementation plans: Malawi and Uganda’s strategic plans have annual implementation plans included in the annexes.
Implementation roles: Although governance structures for digital health are clearly highlighted in all the documents, the strategies for Malawi and Tanzania further highlight the implementation roles for each of the leadership and implementation teams. Tanzania’s strategy emphasizes clear membership and roles for each implementing body.
The team also used the Informatics-Savvy Health Organization (ISHO) framework for situational analysis to identify strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and potential threats of different strategy decisions. The outputs of this process, including recommendations, will be an integral input into the strategy development process.
Putting it all together
PATH and the MOH are now in the process of distilling all the learnings, inputs, and guidelines into a draft of the Kenya Digital Health Strategy. In addition, two expert health economists are reviewing the strategy and costing its implementation. Once drafted, it will be shared and validated with selected subject matter experts for review, including the county government representatives, to ensure that all stakeholders feel that the strategy meets their needs.
We believe that developing a comprehensive, participatory costed national digital health strategy is a critical step in fully realizing the potential of digital health for improved health outcomes. Kenya’s dedication to this process has set a strong example for the region and world, and PATH is proud to support the MOH’s efforts.