I am exploring ways to enhance data interoperability in health information systems, particularly in resource-limited settings. As we know…, seamless data exchange is crucial for improving patient outcomes and strengthening healthcare delivery. However, challenges such as fragmented systems, lack of standardized data formats, and limited technical capacity often hinder progress.
I would love to hear insights or experiences from this group on the following:
Standards and Protocols :- What are the most effective open standards or protocols that you’ve successfully implemented in your projects: ??
Capacity Building :- How do you approach training and support for healthcare staff and IT teams to adopt interoperability solutions: ??
Lessons Learned :- What are some key challenges or “lessons learned” from your efforts to create interoperable systems in low-resource settings: ??
Looking forward to your valuable input and success stories. Let’s collaborate to drive impactful solutions !!
The work of our OpenHIE community, and many lessons learned, is reflected in a Toolkit published last December by the World Bank. Details of this Toolkit and downloadable materials are found, here: Digital Health Blueprint Toolkit. The Toolkit includes templates for conducting a set of facilitated workshops with an indigenous Technical Working Group. Leveraging the OpenHIE architecture, the output of the workshops is a “buildable” national-scale Digital Health Blueprint along with a 10-year investment case that may be leveraged to inform an implementation project.
As an active development partner, the World Bank team is able to assist MOH-led teams who wish to undertake a Toolkit-supported digital health planning effort. Contact details are on the website.
Great to see your post in this community. It’s just the place for it! I work with OpenFn: https://www.openfn.org/ and we focus on enabling interoperability in health sectors across LMIC settings. We have several active projects ongoing right now, and I think our experience from Ghana may prove interesting to you, which I am focused on right now. I’m very happy to schedule some time for an introduction and sharing notes soon - you can drop something in here: Calendly - Jack Hilton
Hi Marcelo. Welcome. There is a community of professionals that have gone, or are going, or will go through some of the challenges you mention. Context is key, so I think I’d start by: Why not join a call sometime soon, I think we eventually go through these things. For example:
what is the most effective standard - I would simply say FHIR and the transformations it has enabled. For example in a country where a) we are not scarce on resources but b) we struggled with how much more we needed or how little we had compared to others, FHIR has triggered some transformations in the way we design healthcare IT. But others will say it is SNOMED or LOINC or CIEL - and they are all right.
I am not implementing solutions for production, but rather organizing how capacity should be built. We are for that reason redesigning some aspects of capacity building, attending to some of the challenges we see especially in LMICs.
there are too many lessons learned, incorrectly acquired and taken for truth, or still things to be learned because we are exploring a lot. And here, context is key: Low-resource settings have specific features to it (not just in IT or digital health, but culture always permeates our way of thinking). One thing I retain is the expectation of a “single best solution” (like a single centrally designed, centrally owned system) or a “magic formula” (like certain architectures, FHIR, SNOMED, CDA, or IPS or others) being “able to solve all the problems”. That is something for which I always observe the same possible outcomes: those who just accept that magic but don’t understand the details, end up going from one “magic formula” to the other or falling in fallacies. However, those who use every new thing to improve their knowledge and sharpen their tools, are more likely to end up truly owning their solutions. For example, 7 years ago or so, some people were absolutely sure that “FHIR will never gain traction because CDA is so good nd so much has been invested”.
Of course, everyone of us has a subjective opinion on lessons and best practices. So i think discussing and learning together is the most important. Looking forward to seeing you and others in one upcoming call - looking at architecture, capacity building and standards. We need them all.
Welcome again
