SHARING STORIES, KNOWLEDGE, AND INSIGHTS

Fast Health Interoperability Resources (FHIR) is an open-source data standard that enables seamless data exchange within and between health systems.

Digital Square at PATH strives to change to global health status quo through our governance model. Governance encompasses decision rights, leadership structures, management processes, policies, procedures, and accountabilities that guide the pursuit of the initiative’s objectives. These structures provide an opportunity to redistribute power, influence, and representation.

Digital Square is pleased to announce its first call for digital entrepreneurs based in Africa interested in working in the health sector. This call seeks to connect local solutions to financial assistance, technical resources, and opportunities to scale for innovative entrepreneurs.  

Digital Square is excited to launch its third edition of the Global Goods Guidebook, showcasing 35 mature digital global goods that are readily adaptable and scalable and used in more than 130 countries around the world. The advancement of global goods is crucial for saving lives and improving health around the world because these free and open source digital health tools can be used across different countries and health program verticals, cutting down on fragmentation and duplication to accelerate scale and health impact.

Digital financial services (DFS) for health are seen as an important lever toward the goal of achieving universal health coverage (UHC) in low- and middle-income countries. To augment a systematic review conducted by USAID’s Local Health Systems Sustainability project, Management Sciences for Health developed two programmatic case studies in Rwanda and Kenya to examine the innovative use of DFS for health to support UHC at scale.

Furthering PATH’s leadership and partnership in the digital health ecosystem, PATH has joined the Digital Public Goods Alliance (DPGA) as a new member. PATH’s new membership follows participation from Digital Square at PATH in the DPGA’s community of practice on health, accompanied by co-authorship of a white paper with the DPGA to improve understanding of the relationship between DPGs and global goods for health.

Today, a cohort of learners, coaches, and trainers are coming together for the first time to create a new cadre of digital health leaders in Africa. Through Digital Square’s Digital Health Applied Leadership Program (DHALP), led by the University of Global Health Equity (UGHE) in Rwanda, 40 participants are beginning this year-long learning program that will enhance their capacity to successfully lead and execute digital health programs.

Digital Square at PATH is pleased to announce that Digital Square’s Board has approved eight proposals for investment—as part of Notice F—to strengthen adaptable, replicable digital tools designed to work together seamlessly to improve health outcomes and help close the health equity gap around the world.

In 2020, COVID-19-related disruptions led to 23 million children missing out on essential vaccines, an increase of nearly 4 million from 2019. Since then, some childhood immunization systems have gradually regained ground, but in many countries, services have not yet returned to pre-pandemic levels, and disruptions intensify when new pandemic waves take hold.

A paradigm shift is underway in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC). Technological innovation is transforming the old health system model into a partnership between patients and professionals, aided and augmented by digitally enabled technologies and better data.

“A good ecosystem of choice provides choice where it’s important, but doesn’t overwhelm people with lots of small, nuanced choices. I often worry that in our current digital health ecosystem, we overwhelm stakeholders with small, nuanced choices and exclude them from the big choices. I’d like Digital Square to work to change that.”

Digital Square at PATH is pleased to announce a new collaboration with Amazon Web Services (AWS) designed to accelerate digital transformation around the world to advance health equity. Through this effort, AWS will provide cloud computing credits to support the cohort of digital health global goods partners that will be awarded a total of $600K through Notice F—the full list of which Digital Square will announce in April. AWS’s support is part of a $40M global program it launched in late 2021 to enhance health and reduce inequities in healthcare.

When Ebola spread through Liberia in August 2014, health workers needed information—and they needed it fast. mHero saw exactly the same need during the COVID-19 pandemic.

mHero is a two-way, mobile phone-based communication system that connects ministries of health and frontline health workers. It was created in 2014 by IntraHealth International and UNICEF to support health-sector communication in Liberia during the Ebola outbreak.

Each quarter, Digital Square shines the spotlight on innovators in the global goods community. Anna Winters is the CEO of Akros, a cutting edge organization that establishes data-driven systems to improve the health and well-being of disadvantaged communities. Akros prides itself on ground-level knowledge of the service delivery systems where the organization works, and its ability to provide novel, lasting solutions implemented in developing regions.