The BID Initiative is featured in the most recent issue (December 2018) of the MMS Bulletin #148 "Digital Health - A Blessing or Curse for Global Health." "Marrying engineering with health policy to bring digital health to scale," by Steven C. Uggowitzer, Sima C. Newell, Dykki Settle, Alice Liu and David J. Hagan.  Just as medical doctors take the Hippocratic Oath as they graduate into their profession, so do many engineers solemnly promise to carry out work to the highest quality, recognizing that any errors may put lives at stake. Given this sharing of fundamental values, engineering is a profession that could be leveraged even further towards public health information systems to address opportunities created by the fusion of the early and relatively informal eHealth and mHealth paradigms into the more mature and complex one that is Digital Health. Recently, the World Health Assembly (WHA) adopted a key resolution on Digital Health, urging member states to assess and prioritise the scale-up of the implementation of digital technologies towards the “universal access to health for all”(WHA 71.1, 2018). For the full article, visit the MMS Bulletin. "The challenges of implementing a data use culture," by Hassan Mtenga, Dr. Alex Mphuru, Dawn Seymour, and Laurie Werner.  To increase coverage and equity of routine immunization services, the government of Tanzania is strengthening the data use culture through the implementation of a package of data quality and use interventions, including an electronic immunization registry, for immunization service delivery. Three key phases for achieving scale as a government-owned model emerged during the implementation: user-centered design and testing, PATH-led implementation, and government-led implementation with scale-up. A combination of factors contributed to achieving a government-owned model of implementation and ultimately showed significant time and cost savings, as well as greater ownership and ability to sustain and scale the interventions. For the full article, visit the MMS Bulletin. Other articles in the MMS Bulletin #148 can be found here.  

Strategic reuse of appropriate tools is one of the core principles of the BID Initiative. Over the last five years, we have worked with the governments of Tanzania and Zambia to enhance immunization and overall health service delivery by improving data collection, quality, and use, with interventions such as electronic immunization registries. We have created several planning, implementation, and data strengthening tools for use in Tanzania and Zambia, and have taken the most frequently used tools from both countries and made them generic. We hope other countries will be able to reuse and modify them for their specific needs. To learn more about the tools and how each was used, visit the BID website. Thanks, Celina, on behalf of the BID Initiative team  

As countries increasingly implement and scale electronic immunization registries (EIRs), it will be critical that they exchange lessons and best practices. The BID Initiative, which is led by PATH, in partnership with the governments of Tanzania and Zambia, recently hosted delegates in Tanzania from PATH's Vietnam office and the country's Ministry of Health. Despite their different health contexts and challenges, Vietnam and Tanzania have much to learn from each other. In Vietnam, PATH’s pilot EIR, called ImmReg, was first developed and tested in 2012, before expanding into the National Immunization Information System (NIIS), which was launched in 2017. Last month’s visit was a chance to deepen this partnership and trade lessons about the challenges and successes of securing government buy-in and building health system capacity for EIRs. Check out several of the takeaways from the recent study visit in this blog post.  

Electronic immunization registries (EIRs) and other immunization information systems can be powerful tools, but in order to achieve their long-term sustainability, countries and governments must understand the financial investment to develop, implement, and sustain such tools as the BID Initiative's EIRs in Tanzania and Zambia. This sort of costing information helps countries budget for and plan for expansion.  Learn more about BID's total cost of ownership (TCO) tool in this recent Q&A with our Senior Health Economist, or reference our TCO factsheet. We hope it will benefit other countries interested in implementing their own digital health initiatives.   Sincerely, The BID Initiative

Dear all, Routine immunizations and new vaccine introductions are two best buys in global health. But while immunization coverage has increased dramatically in the last decade, more must be done to ensure every child is reached. To bridge this gap, we need reliable, easily accessed and actionable data on the barriers impeding immunizations, coupled with trained data users at all levels of the health system. The BID Initiative is grounded in the belief that better data, plus better decisions will lead to better health outcomes. Partnering with Tanzania and Zambia, the BID Initiative developed, tested, and rolled out interventions that address some of the most pressing routine immunization service delivery challenges, such as poor visibility into vaccine supplies and difficulty identifying children who default on immunization schedules. These seven briefs summarize the BID Initiative’s approaches and interventions, and share recommendations and lessons learned for others interested in improving immunization data quality and use. We are thrilled to share them with you! Recommendations and Lessons Learned: Introduction to the Briefs Recommendations and Lessons Learned: Data Use Recommendations and Lessons Learned: Electronic Immunization Registries Recommendations and Lessons Learned: Software Development Cycle Recommendations and Lessons Learned: Rollout Strategy Recommendations and Lessons Learned: Change Management  Recommendations and Lessons Learned: Peer Learning Recommendations and Lessons Learned: Sustainability Take Care,
Celina & the BID Initiative Team