Recently, USAID in partnership with the Minister of Health announced the launch of a new USAID Digital Health Activity (DHA) to continue investments in digital information solutions further strengthen the country’s health system and improve the quality of services.
USAID Mission Director Sean Joens and Minister of Health Dr. Amir Aman inaugurated the new activity, which builds on US-Ethiopian efforts to create or build sustainable, resilient, and interoperable health information systems (HIS) that ensure the entire sector have the data, analytics, and skills necessary to improve the health and the well-being of all Ethiopians.
The director said that the five-year USD 63 million DHA will train end-users including doctors, nurses, health extension workers, and policymakers at all levels of the health system to utilize the technology more effectively and enable them to better serve patients and families across the country.
USAID will also partner with local universities to introduce courses that develop competencies in the health innovations and electronic solutions, and establish career paths that empower young Ethiopians to drive digital solutions across the sector.
The DHA will also create opportunities for entrepreneurs and youth-led tech organizations to utilize their expertise in providing support to the health center, said Sean Joens.
“In addition to simply expanding digital health systems and strengthening the skill of today’s medical professionals, we are also increasing our focus on developing the leaders of tomorrow to drive health innovation far into the future,” he noted.
DHA will support the government of Ethiopia to achieve the country’s information revolution roadmap, a critical component of the health sector transformation plan.
It will enable the country to achieve transformational impacts towards a sustainable and resilient electronic HIS in Ethiopia through digitalization, data use, and governance.
Digitalization, with a nuanced understanding of Ethiopians HIS, its opportunities, as well as challenges, the DHA will co-create feasible solutions to digitize, integrate, and scale up priority health information systems at all levels based on Ethiopia’s eHealth architecture.
Amir Aman (PhD), Minister of Health said that digitizing the sector alone is not enough to transform it, strengthen the country’s health system as well as improve the quality of services. “It needs mindset change of the stakeholders in the sectors”.
USAID’s Digital Health Activity is implemented by JSI and a consortium of partners.
The United States is the largest bilateral provider of support to Ethiopia’s health sector, with approximately USD150 million per year in funding for tuberculosis, HIV/AIDS; malaria; maternal; neonatal and child health; nutrition; and water, sanitation and hygiene.
Overall, the United States has provided approximately USD4 billion in developments and humanitarian assistance to Ethiopia over the past five years.
The Ethiopian Herald December5, 2019
BY MULATU BELACHEW
