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Digital Square is a partnership of the world’s leading digital health experts from 40+ organizations and countries working together to strengthen digital health systems in emerging economies. We support co-investment into scalable technology solutions and create the environments in which they can be sustained. Digital Square is led by and housed at PATH, the leader in global health innovation.

This wiki serves as a platform for technical audiences to obtain resources and information related to Digital Square's investments in global goods. More general information about Digital Square can be found on the main website.

COVID-19 Response

Digital Square is leveraging its unique role and strengths to support countries, donors, and partners in the response to the COVID-19 pandemic. Harnessing existing relationships across the global digital health ecosystem, we mobilize our robust network of partners in coordinated response. We also utilize PATH’s work in global health security, malaria, primary health care, and the broader digital and data portfolio to more comprehensively support country partners in ensuring essential health services remain available.

Read our full capability statement here.

COVID-19 Webinars

April 30, 2020 | Private Sector Digital Adaptations for COVID-19 Response

In this webinar, leaders from the Digital Impact Alliance, Facebook, mClinica, Microsoft, and Tableau shared how to leverage private sector tools and technologies to strengthen health systems in COVID-19 response efforts.

April 7, 2020 | Managing the Global COVID-19 Pandemic with Health Informatics

In partnership with AMIA, this webinar shares informatics responses and challenges within the COVID-19 pandeimc.

March 30, 2020 | Global Goods Adaptation for COVID-19 Response

This webinar features a set of Digital Square-approved digital health global goods that have adapted their technologies to respond to the COVID-19 pandemic.

March 26, 2020 | Re-utilizing PEPFAR Investments during the COVID-19 Response

This webinar showcases how PEPFAR investments can be re-utilized in the COVID-19 response. During this session, we will feature a mix of digital tools including DATIM, Patient Level Monitoring, and the Global Open Facility Registry, and how they can be harnessed in the COVID-19 global response.

Global Good Adaptations to COVID-19 (updated May 6, 2020)

Global Good Adaptation Resources
Digital Health Atlas
As part of the global COVID19 response, the WHO has enhanced the Digital Health Atlas to provide support for governments and investors focused on scaling effective digital health implementations. Key features:
  • 1. Enhanced MOH pages, able to store reference documents of national relevance (policies, investment plans, maturity assessments, etc)
  • 2. Documentation of Project Phases providing DHA users with insights regarding the progress of a project along the software development life cycle (from ideation to scaled implementation)
  • 3. Facilitating the labeling and description of multi-country deployments as "Global Initiatives”.
  • 4. Facilitating the labeling of a project as research-focused and time-bound, allowing researchers to share time-critical insights and progress into Covid-19 and digital health directly with Ministries of Health and Investors
OpenHIE COVID-19 Task Force (Cross-cutting for all global goods)
  • Identify and collate information relating to data standards and exchange relevant to the COVID-19 response.
  • Identify gaps in and establish standards for data exchange priorities.
  • Provide documentation and guidance (to both the global good community as well as proprietary software tools) to improve adherence to these standards.
  • Ensure that rapidly deployed solutions can be integrated into the national digital health architectures.
  • Outputs: HL7 FHIR profile / implementation guide for case reporting & contact tracing.
Bahmni

In Nepal, Bahmni has been adapted for COVID-19 response in a few government hospitals:

  • Creation of a COVID-19 screening template
  • Data is synced in near-real time to dashboards.
CommCare
  • Creation of a template application which provides a full implementation of the WHO FFX Contact Tracing protocol which is available for immediate adoption and customization through the platform. Currently working on ensuring that there is a wide array of translations available for the text.
  • Working on additional template applications for further response and recovery workflows that will become available as they are validated.
  • The team is trying to secure free messaging for COVID-19 response to support self-reporting workflows for positive cases once cases overcome the tracing capacity of health systems.
  • CommCare will be releasing a WhatsApp integration in the near future.
Community Health Toolkit (CHT)
  • Developing CHT reference applications as starter apps for implementers to contextualize, and readily deploy and scale for their needs. These are as follows:
    • Surveillance and Detection: Port of Entry Screening, Event-Based Surveillance, Contact Tracing, and Community-Based Symptom Screening Apps and systems
    • Patient Care: Rapid Diagnostic Testing App, Referral systems, and Isolation Messaging systems, and
    • Protecting Community Health Workers: PPE Projections and Daily Health Checks
  • Accompaniment through secondment of technical staff, supporting our colleagues in Ministries of Health.
  • Continue expanding the use cases and workflows supported by the CHT for COVID-19 response efforts.
  • Coordination with the wider digital health community between existing digital health tools, systems, and standards.

The CHT Team has created two use case demonstrations: Port of Entry (PoE Screening and CHT Rapid Diagnostic Teat (RDT) workflow for community health workers.

DHIS2
  • Ready-to-install DHIS2 digital data packages to support COVID-19 surveillance & response based on WHO guidelines. All packages are optimized for Android or web-based data collection. The packages support:
    • 1) case-based surveillance to track a case through clinical examination, exposures, initiate lab requests, record lab results and case outcome;
    • 2) contact tracing program to facilitate operations of contact tracing and with built in relationships to the case-based tracker for enhanced analysis;
    • 3) Ports of entry screening and follow up
    • 4) automated analysis of core indicators & dashboards for response planning. The package also includes options for aggregate and event-based surveillance; countries can transition between data models according to realities on the ground while still capturing most critical data points.
  • Team has created training materials and videos for the above configurations
  • Packages are currently being translated into French, Spanish, Portuguese, Arabic and Russian.
Logistimo
  • Logistimo SCM has been adapted to include data capture for the COVID-19 supply chain (about 70 products and equipment), which has been deployed across a few states in India.
  • Additional data capture available for supplies to laboratories for tests.
  • Logistimo has created specific COVID-19 dashboards (that we call bulletin boards) which help in easy surveillance for control towers.
  • Several partners have been assessing how effectively COVID-19 bio-medical waste is being handled and disposed using Logistimo Snapshot.
GOFR
  • Overview of GOFR tool for facility reconciliation
mHero
  • Deployed in Liberia in support of the COVID-19 response.
  • New mHero architecture has been developed.
  • Adding additional features including:
    • COVID-19 disease surveillance workflows
    • Ability to send messages from any FHIR compliant database such as OpenMRS
    • Ability to update any FHIR compliant database with new respondent information
    • Ability to respond to messages via WhatsApp and Facebook Messenger
Mobile WACh
  • Provide up-to-date guidance by SMS (push messaging) on symptoms, social distancing, and care-seeking to the general population, as well as HCWs in need of guidance.
  • Provide interactive triage of patient symptoms by 2-way SMS with a HCW, based on international guidance to determine whether and how patients should seek care, and avoid unnecessary risk and strain on the medical system.
  • Continue supporting pregnant and postpartum women, neonates and people living with HIV or other chronic conditions with SMS curricula we have already developed at a time when they will experience even more pronounced shortages of in-person medical care.
ODK
  • ODK's lead developer, Nafundi, is offering pro-bono help to anyone working on the COVID-19 response.
  • Rapidly digitizing forms from the WHO and CDC protocols and making them available for others to use and build on.
  • Offering support for ODK for contact tracing, decision support, community education, strategic mapping, and case management.
  • Demo available on how the WHO minimum reporting form running in ODK Collect (Android) and Enketo (Web) send data to an ODK Central server, which then flows data to a live updating dashboard in PowerBI and a spreadsheet in Excel.
OpenConcept Lab
  • Published a value set, "COVID-19 Starter Set," based on the Columbia International eHealth Laboratory (CIEL) interface terminology
  • Rushed multiple large terminology curation and import processes to support publication of this value set.
OpenELIS
  • OpenELIS Global has added COVID-19 metadata for laboratory testing and resulting, including LOINC codes for interoperability via HL7 2.5. Metadata will be included in the default test catalog with the next release of OpenELIS.
  • Users can immediately use the Administration Menu: Test Management function in the software to add tests for the corona virus (SARS-CoV-2) to their laboratory test catalog to facilitate tracking of laboratory tests and results.
OpenHIM
  • Coming soon - generic support for COVID-19 data exchange with the OpenHIM by extending the OpenHIM Mapping Mediator offerings, supporting a range of use cases around case reporting, surveillance and contact tracing that require an exchange of data between information systems.
  • OpenHIM will support standardized data schema that supports the WHO standards, and in turn FHIR.
OpenLMIS
  • OpenLMIS is responding by supporting OpenLMIS countries to optimize their use of the software to encourage good supply chain management of COVID supplies. We are currently conducting country outreach to ensure users know how to quickly:
    • Add new Products
    • Initiate emergency requisitions
    • Configure and manage inventory of Kits (anticipating the need for COVID kits)
  • The OpenLMIS core team will prioritize any configuration or work related to these functions. Future product committee meetings could be used to share lessons across countries to see how they are preparing their supply chains for COVID.
OpenMRS
  • The OpenMRS community’s goal is to support extension of current functionality that will make it easier for 5,500 existing implementations to a) screen, test, and manage patients and b) report data out efficiently to DHIS2 for public health surveillance.
  • Active COVID-19 Response Squad is working to identify existing work within the OpenMRS community that can be rapidly adapted by implementers and packaged as a suite of COVID-19 Public Health Response Tools. Informatics experts, business analysts, UI/UX designers, developers, and implementers are encouraged to join the conversation, weekly meetings, design forums, and work with the COVID-19 Response Squad.
  • The following OpenMRS COVID-19 Public Health Response Tools under development and discussion include:
    • CIEL concept dictionary with COVID-19 concepts
    • COVID-19 Public Health Response Module
    • COVID-19 Public Health Reporting System Interfaces
  • Standard content related to COVID-19 included in the recent release of Reference Application 2.10.0.
OpenSRP/Akuko/Canopy
  • Develop use of Ona Data/RapidPro + Canopy for secondary response.
  • Create OpenSRP/Reveal and an RDT reader for contact tracing and Akuko data storytelling platform for data viz platform for information sharing.
  • Working with clients in Malawi government to adapt the ODP module for COVID-19 in the future
Reveal
  • Modified forms to incorporate COVID-related data
  • Modifications completed for the planning module to support Reveal's ability to get resources to vulnerable populations (food aid, economic aid, sanitation resources as well as routine health resources), which is crucial given the quarantine and lock-down restrictions many countries are facing.
  • Support to attain high vaccination coverage achieving last mile delivery
SORMAS
  • Ensuring availability of validated real time surveillance data which would in turn lower the disease burden through enabled contact tracing while monitoring the potential for future cases.
  • Offering easy-to-use, multifunctional mobile health (mHealth) and electronic health (eHealth) applications, which provide real-time data availability and compatibility with standard surveillance systems.

Additional COVID Resources

Digital Square Web Articles

Digital Square Information

What We Do

Digital Square is connecting the world for better health.

We work in three key ways:

  • Coordinate investments in proven digital technology to maximize the impact of every dollar spent.
  • Scale global good technologies that can be adapted to different countries and contexts.
  • Create digital market readiness by building capacity with governments, local technology developers, and health workers.

Governance

Digital Square's investments follow detailed governance processes that leverage a Peer Review Committee, Board, and Investment Review Committee. Additionally, Digital Square serves as the Secretariat for DIAL's Health-Sustainability Advisory Group.

Investors

Digital Square is funded in partnership with USAID, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, and a consortium of other donors. A full list can be found on the Digital Square website.

Global Goods


What are approved global goods?

Approved global goods have been vetted using the Global Good Maturity Model and an expert group of digital health stakeholders through the Digital Square Open Application Process. It has been approved as an investment priority by Digital Square’s Board. Approved Digital Square global goods cover nearly all of the World Health Organization Digital Health Intervention Classifications. Many global goods are adaptable to support multiple interventions.


GG Classification Visual.png

Digital Square Investments in Global Goods

Approved Global Goods

Global Good Investment Process

Procurement Processes

Soliciations

External Resources

Digital Square Resources

Digital Health & Interoperability Working Group

The Digital Health & Interoperability Working Group (DH&I WG) is a volunteer community of practice dedicated to strengthening country health systems and outcomes through the appropriate and responsible use of digital information technologies.

Gender Small Working Group

Contact Us

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