How Digital Square supports standards

Standards for Health Information Exchange

Digital health technology is at the core of modern, equitable health care systems. When designed and employed effectively, systems can seamlessly exchange information, leading to improved clinical decisions and outcomes, care coordination, and operational efficiency. This interoperability is made possible through health data standards for digital technologies, which ensure data is uniformly and efficiently exchanged across systems. Digital Square supports the global digital health community, including country governments, in understanding, aligning, and applying these standards. Creating interoperable systems prepared to swiftly advance digital health transformation

Interoperable software enables different systems to speak the same language, regardless of differences in interfaces, platforms, and technologies. A suite of interoperable information systems can track and communicate varied data such as staff availability, number of supplies or equipment, or patient health records.

This smooth data exchange is possible because the software exists in an integrated digital ecosystem that adheres to a common set of standards rather than in data silos. According to Health Level Seven International (HL7), a nonprofit standards development organization, software standards act as “a set of rules that allow information to be shared in a uniform and consistent manner across any application.” Interoperability based on standards enables not only faster implementation but also higher-quality data and improved maintainability, thus positively impacting healthcare workers’ and patients’ lives

Investing in standards development, adoption, and dissemination is key for having interoperable systems. This investment is recognized as essential to the delivery of public services by the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) and is integral to the World Health Organization’s (WHO’s) digital health strategy. Standards investments also lead to a wide range of improvements. As government and facility workforces adopt and become familiar with these systems, digital tools can generate the following benefits to advance health outcomes:

• Facilitate operational ease and efficiency for policymakers, health workers, and facility managers.
• Create new opportunities for data sharing, visualization, and analytics to enable quicker decision-making.
• Reduce the time and cost of troubleshooting information technology (IT) and operational problems such as managing stockouts, conducting data entry, and implementing digital workarounds.
• Reuse existing work and lower the cost of the development of new features and software among users, increasing efficiencies in the health system.
• Provide the basis for systems and people to collaborate so the focus can be on the health and well-being of patients.

By establishing a common foundation and set of tools, software can rely on consistent input from other systems, creating space for stakeholders to swiftly propel digital innovations forward while focusing on what counts: the provision and management of health care.

Engaging with countries and the broader global goods community to support the development of and adherence to standards