The World Health Organization (WHO) and the International Telecommunication Union (ITU) are jointly seeking technical experts to serve as Members of a Technical Working Group (TWG) on Reference Architecture for Digital Public Infrastructure for Health.
We are inviting submissions from professionals with experience in the development, implementation, and evaluation of Digital Public Infrastructure (DPI) for health goals, as well as those involved with the development of technical and implementation guidance and specifications. The Technical Working Group is a part of the Global Initiative on Digital Health (GIDH), focused on advancing the use of DPI to achieve broader national health objectives.
Purpose of Technical Working Group (TWG)
The Technical Working Group aims to develop a comprehensive DPI Reference Architecture Toolkit for National Digital Health Transformation. This Toolkit will be instrumental in guiding countries to leverage DPI effectively in achieving health goals such as enhancing quality and continuity of care, optimizing supply chain management, and improving health system resilience.
Working Group Responsibilities
Selected experts will be invited to join Technical Working Groups, focused on one or more illustrative areas:
- Use Case Development: Focus on identifying and refining use cases where cross-sectoral and health-specific DPI have been used successfully to advance specific health sector goals and outcomes.
- DPI Resources and Standards: Concentrate on developing reference architecture guidance and technical specifications for health-specific DPI components aligned with interoperability standards.
Importance of DPI and quality-assured content for health goals
A robust DPI for Health catalyzes and enables locally owned innovation in integrated and interoperable digital health solutions. This facilitates the health sector to achieve its goals in a more efficient and cost-effective manner while minimizing risks. The benefits extend across multiple dimensions:1
- Continuity of Care: Enhancing overall continuity of care by facilitating seamless information exchange across health care providers.
- Quality of care: Promoting adherence to evidence-based clinical guidelines and best practices through standardized protocols to ensure quality of care.
- Reducing burden on health workers: Reduce inefficiencies in administrative processes health workers are responsible for, to optimize health workers’ skills and time when there is a global health workforce shortage. Efficiency and Affordability: Optimizing the efficiency and affordability of services by reducing duplication of effort and ensuring effective resource utilization.
- Health Financing: Influencing health-financing models and processes through enhanced data availability and standardization.
- Regulation and Oversight: Strengthening regulation, oversight, and patient safety by leveraging performance data and reducing errors.
- Data-driven Policy-Making and Resource Allocation: Informing health policy-making and resource allocation through improved data quality and insights.
Submitting your expression of interest
Submissions should be made through this linked form, and include a brief overview of your bio, your work in health and digital transformation (see submission categories below) and its relevance to the use of DPI for health, and the impact it has had or is expected to have, and any relevant case-studies, guidance or technical specifications you have developed.
Please note that, if selected, membership will be in a personal capacity. Therefore do not use the letterhead or other identification of your employer.
Submission Categories
- Country Examples: Detailed case studies showcasing successful implementation of DPI in the health sector. We are particularly interested in examples that demonstrate the integration of cross-sectoral foundational DPI with health-specific DPI components.
- Technical Guidance Documents: Normative guidance or standards-based documents that outline best practices for designing and implementing DPI for health goals. This includes interoperability standards, modular system designs, and frameworks for data governance and security.
- Implementation Experience: Practical insights and lessons learned from implementing DPI in various health contexts, including challenges faced and strategies used to overcome them.
- Technical Specifications: Detailed specifications of cross-sectoral and health-specific DPI building blocks, particularly those tailored for health applications, that are rooted in open standards and designed for scalability and interoperability.
Important information about the selection processes and conditions of appointment
No member of the TWG shall receive, directly or indirectly, any salary, compensation, or emolument for this work. Active contribution implies attendance (>70%) and participation in meetings, as well as contributions. The project team may request a member to withdraw if such requirements are not met. Only active contributions will be acknowledged. Members are expected to have a high level of personal and professional integrity, work inclusively, and bring a broad perspective to issues rather than solely that of a particular partner.
All members will serve in their individual expert capacity and shall not represent any governments, any commercial industries or entities, any research, academic or civil society organizations, or any other bodies, entities, institutions or organizations. They are expected to fully comply with the Code of Conduct for WHO Experts (https://www.who.int/about/ethics/declarations-of-interest). TWG members will be expected to sign and return a completed confidentiality undertaking and the DOI prior to the beginning of the first meeting.
WHO reserves the right to accept or reject any expression of interest , to annul the open call process and reject all expressions of interest at any time without incurring any liability to the affected applicant or applicants and without any obligation to inform the affected applicant or applicants of the grounds for WHO's action. WHO may also decide, at any time, not to proceed with the establishment of the TWG, disband an existing TWG or modify the work.
WHO shall not in any way be obliged to reveal, or discuss with any applicant, how an expression of interest was assessed, or to provide any other information relating to the evaluation/selection process or to state the reasons for not choosing a member.