Capacity strengthening to support women in data and digital health: Wahida’s story
By: Irene Kemilembe, PATH Tanzania
How can digital health capacity strengthening help bridge the digital gender divide? Meet Wahida.
Wahida Salumu Omary (right) is a software developer in Tanzania’s Medical Stores Department. Photo: PATH/Irene Kemilembe
Wahida Salumu Omary is a software developer who graduated from the University of Dodoma, Tanzania, in 2021 with a Bachelor of Science in Information Systems. Before joining the program, she wanted to pursue a degree in agriculture or pharmacy, but her brother encouraged her to study information technology. “He thought it would expose me to more opportunities,” Wahida noted. She took that chance and pursued the degree. She has come to love working in the digital space in the health sector.
Wahida sets up a Fast Healthcare Interoperability Resources (FHIR) server during a training for developers on June 5, 2024, at Palace Hotel, Arusha in Tanzania. Photo: PATH/Irene Kemilembe
Wahida currently works with the Medical Stores Department (MSD) in Dar es Salaam as a software developer and data analyst. MSD is a health institution that is responsible for the production, procurement, storage, and distribution of health commodities, including medicine and supplies, to health facilities in Tanzania. Wahida’s role at MSD is to ensure the availability of meaningful and impactful data.
“By cleaning the data, I help transform and visualize it to provide insight for health workers and managers to support decision-making in procuring, distributing, and storing health commodities,” she notes.
The data is received through the integration of the MSD system with health facilities that request commodities.
The challenge of different code labels
A significant challenge that Wahida faces while performing her tasks is the code labeling of health commodities being sent from MSD to health facilities.
“For instance,” she says, “the code label for paracetamol from MSD is PartNum 10010473, but from a health facility it’s PartNum 10052381. This creates a challenge when a health facility requests paracetamol from MSD.”
For MSD to understand the request from that health facility, MSD must map paracetamol from that facility to paracetamol at MSD—in other words, aligning the data (in this case, changing the code labels) to ensure that the software systems can communicate with each other. Once the facility changes the label, MSD is forced to map it again to the new label. These multi-step processes must be completed for all individual health facilities. It creates a challenge for MSD to know the total number of paracetamol shipments that have been ordered in the country as each facility uses different paracetamol labels.
Learning the FHIR standard
In June 2024, Wahida was invited to a five-day digital health training for developers in Tanzania focused on Fast Healthcare Interoperability Resources® (FHIR). FHIR is a digital health standard that allows seamless and secure electronic exchange of health information—such as orders for paracetamol—to enhance decision-making to support better health care provision to citizens.
Luke Duncan (Technical Advisor, Digital Square at PATH) facilitating FHIR training at Palace Hotel on June 03, 2024, in Arusha, Tanzania. Photo: PATH/Irene Kemilembe
Wahida learns the FHIR standard alongside another attendee during the June 2024 training. Photo: PATH/Irene Kemilembe
The FHIR training was facilitated by the Tanzania Ministry of Health in collaboration with Digital Square at PATH. It was co-sponsored as part of the German International Development Bank (GIZ)-funded Digital Innovation in Pandemic Control (DIPC) project and The Rockefeller Foundation-funded DRIVE Demand Project. The training brought together 26 software developers, 21 of whom were male and 5 of whom were female. This lower representation of female developers is typical in the digital space, where there remains a large gender gap. According to a 2016 report, only nine percent of African tech start-ups were led by women, and as of 2023, just 32 percent of women in sub-Saharan Africa have access to mobile internet.
Through the training, Wahida gained skills and knowledge on the importance of FHIR and how it will simplify her work. By using the FHIR standard, all health systems in all health facilities across Tanzania can adopt the same standards for health commodities to enable seamless interoperability.
“The training has empowered me to work on backend programming like integration, as I was not confident in that area before—I am more confident in front-end programming to develop user interfaces. The training has enabled me to develop Application Programming Interfaces (APIs) that will enable data generation from MSD. This is needed by other health facilities to ensure system interoperability to facilitate data exchange among the digital health system,” she says.
Connecting with other women developers
During the training, she also connected and collaborated with fellow women software developers in digital health who work with the Ministry of Health in both mainland Tanzania and Zanzibar, as well as the eGovernment Authority. The training provided the women with a sense of belonging in the same room with male colleagues who supported them with learning and exchanging knowledge.
From top left: Wahida Salumu Omary (ICT Officer, Medical Store department), Eunice Silas (ICT Officer, Immunization and Vaccination Department), Magdalena Mafuru (ICT Officer, Ministry of Health); from bottom left: Erna Mwende (Senior ICT Officer, e-Government Authority), Asma Juma Mwita (ICT Officer, Ministry of Health Zanzibar). These women were in attendance at the Digital Square-led FHIR training held in Palace Hotel, Arusha, Tanzania in June 2024. Photo: PATH/Irene Kemilembe
Empowering women in digital health
Wahida’s story represents how women in particular can benefit from capacity-strengthening opportunities. In particular:
Capacity strengthening exposes women to other developers and creates awareness of opportunities in digital health.
Networking opportunities help establish a platform where women can connect, collaborate, and inspire other women to seize opportunities.
If designed in a gender-intentional way, capacity strengthening and networking opportunities can help ensure that more women are included in the development of inclusive digital health systems that meet their needs.
By intentionally seeking out female participation in such opportunities, programs can help build gender equity in digital health.
Wahida’s message
When asked what her message is for other young women in digital health, Wahida responded, “Have confidence on what you want to do and do not be afraid that this is hard. No. If you have that courage that I can do this, and that courage that I can be whoever I want to, this field is very good for you.”
Listen to Wahida’s full message in the sound clip below: