About the directory

Background

The impetus for a consultant directory came from a November 2016 DHIS 2 conference in Geneva, Switzerland. Participants recommended a list of twelve actions (see Appendix below) to increase the effectiveness of DHIS 2 in addressing global health issues. The three top-ranked actions were:

  • Provide training material that includes good examples of reports, dashboards and indicators using best practices. The training materials should help users design an effective, usable system and act as templates for implementations.
  • Provide a list of qualified DHIS 2 experts and contractors with their specialties and experience to make it easier to find relevant help.
  • Create packages of DHIS 2 forms, programs, data elements, indicators, reports and dashboards that users can copy and adapt for their own purposes rather than creating them from scratch.

LogicalOutcomes, a nonprofit organization based in Canada, has offered to set up an initial consultant directory. This public directory will invite consultants to submit descriptions of themselves and their services, and link to tools, templates and use cases that they have worked on. The goal is for other organizations to join us in managing the directory, and that it will eventually be led by a broad community group.

Relationship with University of Oslo

The University of Oslo’s Health Information Systems Program (UiO) is supportive of this initiative and is willing to link to its resources from the DHIS2.org web site assuming that it is community-led, but will not be a direct sponsor or approval authority. UiO has recommended that an expanded list of people and skills should be open for any consultant to self-register and be neutral in the sense that no organization is controlling who can be there or not. The DHIS 2 web site will continue to host a brief list of experts with whom UiO has experience.

Elements of the directory

The directory contains several linked resources to support DHIS 2 implementations.

1. Consultants

The consultants directory includes DHIS 2 consultants who are available for collaboration and/or contracting. Consultants submit themselves for inclusion in the list through a brief survey form. The directory is searchable and can be filtered by terms like language, skills, availability, location and organization. The entries will have a brief ‘About me’ section to highlight interests and experience. The directory includes a description of the various skills sets and roles that are necessary for effective DHIS 2 implementations.

Each consultant must submit at least one tool or template or use case or user story (with permission from the client) to be published on the list. This will build the directory of tools and use cases, and it will also demonstrate the capability of the consultants.

2. Tools

The tools directory includes DHIS 2 tools, articles, apps and templates. Examples include guidance documents for implementations; API code and documentation; apps that are not mature enough to be added to the DHIS 2 app store; samples of business cases, budget and project planning templates; validated indicators that can be imported into DHIS 2 instances; and articles on best practices.

Each tool is linked to associated consultants and use cases, enabling users to identify expertise in specific areas.

3. Project descriptions

The project descriptions directory includes DHIS 2 use cases or user stories, from massive multi-national and multi-sectoral projects to small NGO pilots. The use cases are searchable and can be filtered by terms like size, topic, sector, country, organization and network affiliation, and software integrations. The descriptions should be useful for many purposes, including RFP and proposal development and identification of potential collaborators and tools.

Some use cases may be anonymized to protect client privacy, but all of them should be published with the permission of the organization involved.

4. FAQs

The Frequently Asked Questions page addresses selection and quality criteria, the review process, governance, privacy policy, disclaimers and terms and conditions. The list will have guidelines on intellectual property (i.e., open access principles and the necessity of permission from the owner of IP), and a statement that the site does not guarantee that the tools work.

Proposed Submission and approval process

  1. Individuals and organizations self-register on the site using standard templates and post information about themselves, their skills, availability and contact information, tools and templates that they are willing to share with the community, and/or descriptions of their past projects and use cases (with client permission).
  2. The submissions will be reviewed for clarity and completeness according to a publicly posted quality checklist.
  3. If the submission passes the quality checks, it will be made public on the site. If it is turned down, there will be an appeal process to ensure the fair application of the quality screening.
  4. Postings will be updated every year to ensure that they are kept up to date or archived, as appropriate. For example, some tools will become obsolete with new versions of DHIS 2, and some consultants may become unavailable for collaboration.

Governance structure

The administrative, review and development work may be funded and managed by a single organization, but with guidance provided by a steering committee. To maximize accessibility and minimize expenses, the work of the committee should be carried out online using distance collaboration tools, and should not require physical meetings.

We propose a community-based steering committee comprised of representatives from a variety of organizations working in the DHIS 2 community. The steering committee would be comprised of volunteers from these organizations, and would review the management of the portal, its content, and its use on a quarterly basis. The steering committee would convene on a quarterly basis to address policy issues and review suggestions and complaints from users.

Members of the committee should reflect multiple stakeholders, with some minimum proportion representing HISP nodes in the Global South, and voting membership should not be dominated by any one organization. The steering committee should aim to make decisions by consensus rather than on a voting basis.


Appendix

Full list of recommended actions from Geneva DHIS 2 Conference

The following actions are in order of priority, as rated by the conference participants.

  1. Provide training material that includes good examples of reports, dashboards and indicators using best practices. The training materials should help users design an effective system that will actually be used, and that can act as templates for implementations.
  2. Provide a list of qualified DHIS 2 experts and contractors with their specialties and experience to make it easier to find relevant help. The process for listing experts should be transparent and credible, and should highlight regional expertise in the global South to build capacity and promote South-South collaboration.
  3. Create packages of DHIS 2 forms, programs, data elements, indicators, reports and dashboards that users can copy and adapt for their own purposes rather than creating them from scratch. For example, develop logistics processes, indicators and template configurations for emergency situations so that DHIS 2 can be implemented quickly in emergencies
  4. Provide regional level support to countries through training hubs, technical assistance and online training courses.
  5. Develop a consolidated registry of useful indicators and data elements that can be endorsed by major donors, countries and NGOs and exported into DHIS 2. The indicators should follow metadata standards.
  6. Create a transparent requirements definition and priority process for DHIS2, clarifying how users can provide input to the roadmap.
  7. Increase the functionality and effectiveness of DHIS2 in integrated disease surveillance and response, from initial outbreak to notification and response, to ensure that the right information reaches the right decision-makers at all levels of the system.
  8. Compile inventory of use cases in various applications, including diseases (HIV, TB and Malaria) civil registration, linkages to multiple health and administrative systems (e.g., vaccination records), results-based funding, etc., so that users can find out what is available. This might include an annotated bibliography of papers and academic research that has been done in DHIS 2.
  9. Post case studies and group work from past academies and workshops to make them easy for people to find. Make all exercises and group work available to all country users for scale-up of training, grouped by diseases and audiences (e.g. Central, District, Health Facility) and allow countries to translate and localize them.
  10. Develop a recommended collection of indicators to assess the effectiveness of the health information system, e.g., number of users, program efficiency, maturity of the health system, cost effectiveness against standard health metrics, etc. that can be imported into a DHIS 2 implementation.
  11. Develop a repository of templates, sample documents etc for the wider project/programme management activities required for a DHIS2 implementation. They might include project plan, business case/budget, RFI, RFP, risk/issue log, system architecture diagrams, requirements specifications, comms plan, change control, etc.
  12. Create benchmarks of costs per facility in different situations, including things like connectivity, devices, support, for a realistic implementation of DHIS 2. Include realistic estimates of financial savings (e.g., reduction in paperwork) that would offset the cost.