This abstract has been accepted at the 2024 DHIS2 Annual Conference
Digital Innovation and Pandemic Control: Enhancing E-Tracker for immunization in Ghana.
The use of WHO’s SMART Guidelines is becoming increasingly prevalent as digital health stakeholders appreciate their ability to help standardize and positively impact the delivery of care. Digital Square and the Ghana Health Service (GHS) utilized WHO’s DAK framework to develop its own version for immunization. DAKs are a structured way of writing user and system requirements (i.e., what the digital system needs to do) for a specific health area and are written in a standardized way. This is a simpler, easier, and quicker way to validate immunization system requirements as much of the information is already prepped. This standardized approach promotes sharing and re-use of common requirements between health programmes and countries. The system user requirements document (SURD), which utilizes WHO’s DAK framework, serves as the foundational document used for system development. The SURD aims to provide a common language across various audiences–program managers, software developers, and implementers of digital systems–to ensure a shared understanding of the appropriate health information content within the immunization health program area as a mechanism to catalyze the effective use of these digital systems. GHS, Deutsche Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit (GIZ), and Digital Square are developing and operationalizing interoperable digital systems to support immunization as part of the Digital Innovation and Pandemic Control project (DIPC). DIPC is partnering with GHS to enhance the Child Health Module of GHS’s E-Tracker system (based on DHIS2) to serve as Ghana’s immunization information system for COVID-19 and routine immunization. By leveraging existing tools, guidelines, and standards—such as WHO’s SMART Guidelines and their DAK framework—Ghana is improving the DHIS2 E-Tracker to be more responsive to the needs of clients, healthcare providers, and health system managers to improve immunization services.
Primary Author: Gideon Sarpong Nyamekye
Keywords:
SMART Guidelines, Digital Adaptation Kit framework
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