Digital Health Officer

REPORTS TO     Project Coordinator
DEPARTMENT Programmes
DURATION 6 months, contingent on donor funding

About The Risk-Enhanced Community Care After Discharge Project: (REConneCteD). 
This project in Uganda and Kenya aims to digitally integrate the facility-based Smart Discharges (SD) program with the community-based electronic Community Health Information System (eCHIS) platform. The objective of the project is to ensure that the children most vulnerable to post-discharge mortality can be identified at the point of admission and be connected with community health workers for improved transitions of care and support in their recovery at home. The Digital Health Officer will be responsible for supporting the development of secure data exchange systems, ensuring high-quality data management and engaging with various eCHIS and EHR partners.

WALIMU is currently looking for an enthusiastic, hardworking, and self-motivated person to join our team to support the effective delivery of the organization’s mission.

JOB OVERVIEW/SUMMARY     
Reporting to the Project Coordinator, the Digital Health Officer will be responsible for leading the development, monitoring, and integration of digital tools supporting the REConneCteD project:

Duties and Responsibilities:

1. Engage collaboratively with EHR and eCHIS vendors on software design and development of new tasks within their existing systems
2. Documentation of all software development including security and quality assurance measures in place
3. System administration of a server hosting the eCHIS platform, installation and maintenance
4. Design of an API to process incoming FHIR resources to trigger scheduling of eCHIS tasks
5. Feasibility and usability testing of eCHIS and associated systems (as part of testing of the whole REConneCteD platform) to identify problems
6. Assessing design alternatives and responding to feedback found during feasibility and usability testing, focus groups, and co-creation workshops
7. Developing training material for the additions to eCHIS
8. Developing automated data monitoring checks to ensure proper use of eCHIS
9. Developing reports to summarize the completion of eCHIS tasks within each region
10. Attending a co-creation workshop and incorporating feedback from REConneCteD partners, Ministry of Health members, and associated external parties.
11. Data management of community data for a clinical trial – sending of data to a Research Electronic Data Capture (REDCap) database
12. Troubleshooting of day to day hardware and software problems related to the functioning of eCHIS and communication from facilities.
13. Adhere to all preventative and mitigation strategies developed for the project as part of the risk assessment and report on any issues that occur related to the success of the project
14. Engage with EHR, eCHIS vendors, and community partners to promote collaboration and facilitate seamless integration of REConneCteD within their systems.
15. Work closely with the Technical Lead at the Institute for Global Health in Canada to ensure successful project implementation and timely task completion

Note: The role of the Digital Health Officer cannot be limited to the specific duties and tasks detailed herein. The success of the WALIMU’s mission is the highest priority and all issues which arise must be addressed. Accordingly. Therefore, s/he will be required to manage all unforeseen issues and circumstances and remain flexible to perform any other duties, as and when required.

REQUIREMENTS/QUALIFICATIONS:

 Education and Experience: 

1. Bachelor’s degree in Computer Science, Information Systems, Health Informatics or related fields
2. A Master’s degree in Computer Science, Information Systems, or Health Informatics is preferred.
3. Minimum 3 years’ experience in software development, digital health systems, and health integration projects
4. Experience developing or maintaining health information systems or similar
5. Experience working with FHIR, APIs, and Android systems
6. Experience in stakeholder engagement, data management, server administration, and clinical or community health projects.

Key Competencies:

1. Strong knowledge of           FHIR,    APIs,     and        digital   health infrastructure
2. Skilled at diagnosing and resolving technical issues
3. Demonstrated knowledge of the Ministry of Health’s digital health policies and strategic vision, including how these initiatives are operationalized across the healthcare system 2
4. Excellent written and verbal skills in the English Language
5. Excellent interpersonal skills with the ability to work in multidisciplinary teams
6. Strong written and verbal communication skills for documentation, training and stakeholder engagement
7. Knowledge of high data security and quality standards
8. Ability to attend early morning or late evening meetings as required to accommodate time zone differences for the international research team based in Vancouver, Canada
9. Available to travel within Uganda and Kenya to visit eCHIS and EHR vendors as well as study sites as needed.