Republic of Uganda

Ministry of Health

Uganda National eHealth Strategy

2017 - 2021

i
Foreword
The Ugandan healthcare system, through its ongoing health sector reforms, aims to improve health
outcomes. As part of these reforms, the Ministry of Health (MOH) developed the Health Sector
Development Plan (HSDP) 2015/16 - 2019/20 to address the key challenges facing Uganda’s health
system, set out priorities and key areas on which to focus health investment in the medium term, for
both public and private partners, in order to optimally contribute to the attainment of both the
health sector goals and the national goals as outlined in the National Development Plan II. Although
implementation of HSSP III promised to produce many positive results, realizing the best outcomes
in the face of increasing pressures on the healthcare system requires a fundamental transformation
in the way health care is delivered and managed.

The Ministry recognizes the potential of information and communication technology (ICT) in
transforming healthcare delivery by enabling information access and supporting healthcare
operations, management, and decision making. However, the Ugandan health sector is characterized
by a fragmented landscape of ICT pilot projects and numerous data and health information system
(HIS) silos with significant barriers to the effective sharing of information between healthcare
participants.

Although the government, partners, and private institutions are continuing to invest in various ICT
initiatives, without some form of a national plan and coordination, there is a real risk of continued
duplication, ineffective expenditure, and the creation of new solutions that cannot be integrated or
scaled across the continuum of care.

To form a national plan and communication, the MOH developed a National eHealth Policy (2013), a
National eHealth Strategy (2013), and subsequently a draft National eHealth Policy (2016) to guide
the use of ICT in supporting health sector transformation. As part of these processes, the Ministry,
through an eHealth Technical Working Group (eHealth TWG) supported by United Nations Children’s
Fund (UNICEF) and World Health Organization (WHO), conducted a series of national consultations
that included health sector professionals, partners, faith-based organizations, Government, non-
governmental organizations (NGOs), and other stakeholders.

In 2016, the Ministry, through technical and financial support from UNICEF and WHO under the
stewardship of the eHealth TWG reviewed the draft eHealth Policy and strategy, seeking areas for
improvement. The review process also followed a participatory approach driven by HSDP strategic
objectives. The National eHealth Policy and Strategy provide an appropriate basis to guide the
development of eHealth in Uganda. It adopts enterprise architecture (EA) - driven development
approach to developing eHealth capabilities:

• Leverage what currently exists in the Ugandan eHealth landscape.

• Understand what the new components are and where they fit in existing structures.
• Define information structures to fit current needs and to support anticipated ones.
• Demonstrate how technology and resource constraints dictate both what is feasible and the
path forward.

The implementation of this eHealth policy and strategy will accelerate the ongoing reforms and
sustain the gains witnessed in the sector since 2015, when the sector started the implementation of
HSDP. In addition, the policy and strategy will address some of the key challenges experienced

ii
during HSDP, that include a shortage of qualified healthcare professionals at all levels of the health
system; epidemics such as HIV/AIDS, tuberculosis (TB), and malaria; and limited access to health
facilities and health professionals due to poor infrastructure, inefficiencies of the healthcare system,
poverty, and ignorance.

The National eHealth Policy and Strategy will deliver the eventual benefit of a safer, high-quality,
equitable, efficient, and sustainable health system that is equipped to respond to emerging health
sector cost and demand pressures. The Ugandan healthcare system enhancements will also drive
stronger workforce productivity that is vital to Uganda’s long-term economic development.

The National eHealth Policy and Strategy is applauded as a useful guide to the next steps for Uganda
in its eHealth journey. The Policy and Strategy are pragmatic, balances different priorities, and will
help to lead Uganda toward the delivery of a safer, better connected, and more sustainable
healthcare system.

Dr. Jane Ruth Aceng

Minister of Health

iii
Table of Contents

Foreword................................................................................................................................................. ii

Table of Contents ................................................................................................................................... iv

Acknowledgements................................................................................................................................. 1

List of Acronyms and Abbreviations ....................................................................................................... 1

Definition of Key Terms .......................................................................................................................... 4

List of Tables ........................................................................................................................................... 7

List of Figures .......................................................................................................................................... 7

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY ............................................................................................................................ 9

1 Introduction .................................................................................................................................. 11

1.1 eHealth Background.............................................................................................................. 11

1.2 Methodology of developing the eHealth Strategy ............................................................... 11
2 Strategic Context for eHealth ....................................................................................................... 12

2.1 The International Perspective ............................................................................................... 12

2.2 The Uganda Healthcare System ............................................................................................ 14
2.3 Justification of eHealth in Uganda ........................................................................................ 15
3 Situation Analysis .......................................................................................................................... 16

3.1 Uganda eHealth Situation Analysis ....................................................................................... 16

3.1.1 Leadership and Governance of eHealth........................................................................ 16
3.1.2 eHealth Enterprise Architecture, Interoperability and Standards ................................ 16

iv
3.1.3 eHealth Services, Information Sharing and Data Management ................................... 16
3.1.4 Infrastructure ................................................................................................................ 17
3.1.5 eHealth Information Assurance .................................................................................... 18
3.1.6 Ethics ............................................................................................................................. 18
3.1.7 Human Resources and Capacity Building ...................................................................... 19
3.1.8 Mainstreaming Special Interest Groups ....................................................................... 19
3.1.9 Research, Innovation and Development....................................................................... 19
3.1.10 eHealth Investment....................................................................................................... 20
3.1.11 Stakeholder Engagement, Collaborations, Advocacy and SMART Partnerships .......... 20
3.1.12 Business Process Re-Engineering .................................................................................. 21
3.1.13 Legal and Regulatory Framework for eHealth .............................................................. 21
3.2 eHealth SCOT Analysis .......................................................................................................... 21
4 Aspirations of the eHealth Strategy .............................................................................................. 24

4.1 Scope ..................................................................................................................................... 24

4.2 Vision..................................................................................................................................... 24
4.3 Mission .................................................................................................................................. 24
4.4 Goal ....................................................................................................................................... 24
4.5 Objectives.............................................................................................................................. 24
4.6 Strategy Guiding Principles ................................................................................................... 25
5 Strategic Direction/Focus.............................................................................................................. 26

6 eHealth Strategic Pillars ................................................................................................................ 30

6.1 Leadership and Governance of eHealth ............................................................................... 30

6.2 eHealth Enterprise Architecture, Interoperability and Standards ........................................ 32
6.3 eHealth Services, Information Sharing and Data Management ........................................... 34
6.4 Infrastructure ........................................................................................................................ 44
6.5 Ethics ..................................................................................................................................... 47
6.6 eHealth Information Assurance ............................................................................................ 48
6.7 Human Resources and Capacity Building.............................................................................. 50
6.8 Mainstreaming Special Interest Groups ............................................................................... 52
6.9 Research, Innovation and Development............................................................................... 53
6.10 eHealth Investment............................................................................................................... 55
6.11 Stakeholder Engagement, Collaborations, Advocacy and SMART Partnerships .................. 58
6.12 Change, Adoption, Business Process Re-Engineering and Transitioning .............................. 59

v
6.13 Legal and Regulatory Framework ......................................................................................... 61
7 Implementation ............................................................................................................................ 62

7.1 Roadmap and Action Plan ..................................................................................................... 63

7.2 Projects and Prioritization..................................................................................................... 65
7.3 Funding and Budget .............................................................................................................. 65
7.3.1 Funding Model .............................................................................................................. 65
7.3.2 Budget ........................................................................................................................... 67
7.4 Monitoring and Evaluation ................................................................................................... 69
7.4.1 The Proposed Monitoring and Evaluation Process ....................................................... 70
7.5 Governance and Management ............................................................................................. 72
7.6 Critical Success Factors ......................................................................................................... 77
7.7 Sustainability ......................................................................................................................... 78
7.7.1 Sustainability Planning .................................................................................................. 78
7.7.2 Sustainability Planning Guideline.................................................................................. 78
Appendices............................................................................................................................................ 81

Appendix A) Phased Implementation ............................................................................................ 81

Appendix B) Detailed Costing and Budget..................................................................................... 96
Appendix C) Monitoring and Evaluation Matrix ............................................................................ 96
Appendix D) Governance and Management ................................................................................. 97
Existing Governance Structures .................................................................................................... 97
eHealth Ideal Governance and Management Responsibility Matrix ............................................ 99
Proposed Governance and Management ................................................................................... 100
Appendix E) Enterprise Architecture Ideal Situation .................................................................. 113
Appendix F) Priority Medical Institutions and Facilities – Connection to the NBI ...................... 114
Appendix G) eHealth Pilot Solutions ........................................................................................ 116
Appendix H) Key Stakeholders ..................................................................................................... 117

vi
Acknowledgements

List of Acronyms and Abbreviations

AIN Alien Identification Number

BC Business Continuity

CIS Clinical Information System

CPD Continuing Professional Development

CSO Civil Society Organization

DGHS Director General of Health Services

DR Disaster Recovery

EAC East African Community

EGI e-Government Infrastructure

HEA-IF Health Enterprise Architecture and Interoperability Framework

EHR Electronic Health Record

EMR Electronic Medical Record

eTWG eHealth Technical Working Group

GOe Global Observatory for eHealth

HCI Health Centre 1

HCII Health Centre 2

HCIII Health Centre 3

HCIV Health Centre 4

HDPs Health Development Partners

HIS Health Information System

HMIS Health Management Information System

HPA Health Professional Associations

HPAC Health Policy Advisory Committee

1
HRHIS Human Resources for Health Information System

HRIS Human Resource Information system

HSC Health Service Commission

HSDP Health Sector Development Plan

HSSIP Health Sector Strategic and Investment Plan

ICT Information and Communication Technology

IFMS Integrated Financial Management Systems

IHRMS Integrated Human Resource Management System

IT Information Technology

LIMS Land Information Management System

LSMIS Logistics and Supplies Management Information System

LIS Library Information system

LOGICS Local Government Information Communication System

LRC Law Reform Commission

MDAs Ministries Departments and Agencies

MDGs Millennium Development Goals

MoEI Ministry of Ethics and Integrity

MoES Ministry of Education & Sports

MoFPED Ministry of Finance, Planning and Economic Development

MoH Ministry of Health

MoICT Ministry of Information Communications and Technology

MoJCA Ministry of Justice and Constitutional Affairs

MoLG Ministry of Local Government

MoPS, Ministry of Public Service

MoSTI Ministry of Science, Technology and Innovation

NASH National Authentication Service for Health

NBI National Backbone Infrastructure

2
NDC National Data Centre

NDP National Development Plan

NeHP National eHealth Policy

NeHSC National eHealth Steering Committee

NeHS National eHealth Strategy

NHP National Health Policy

NIN National Identification Number

NISF National Information Security Framework

NITA-U National Information Technology Authority - Uganda

NITP National Information Technology Policy

NRH National Referral Hospitals

PDA Personal Digital Assistant

PHR Personal Health Record

PHI Personal Health Information

PI Personal Information

PFP Private-for-Profit

PNFP Private-Not-for-Profit

PPP Public Private Partnership

RC Resource Centre

RCDF Rural Communications Development Fund

RRH Regional Referral Hospitals

SMART Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Realistic and Time-bound

SIG Special Interest Group

SOP Standard Operating Procedure

TMC Top Management Committee

TV Television

TWG Technical Working Group

3
UHEA Uganda Health Enterprise Architecture and Interoperability Framework

UCC Uganda Communications Commission

UCMB Uganda Catholic Medical Bureau

UHI Unique Healthcare Identifiers

UN United Nations

UNMHCP Uganda National Minimum Health Care Package

VHTs Village Health Teams

WHA World health Assembly

WHO World Health Organization

Definition of Key Terms

Business Continuity (BC): is defined as the capability of the organization to continue

delivery of products or services at acceptable predefined levels following a disruptive
incident. (Source: ISO 22301:2012)

Business process reengineering (BPR): The fundamental rethinking and redesign of business
processes to achieve dramatic improvements in critical contemporary measures of
performance such as cost, quality, service, and speed.

Client: A recipient of health service regardless of the state of health.

Clinical Information System: A Clinical Information System (CIS) is a computer

based system that is designed for collecting, storing, manipulating and making
available clinical information important to the healthcare delivery process.

Disaster recovery (DR): involves a set of policies and procedures to enable the recovery or
continuation of vital technology infrastructure and systems following a natural or human-
induced disaster.

Distance learning for health professionals (eLearning): eLearning services comprise

education and training in electronic form for health pprofessionals. eLearning improves the
quality of education and increase access to learning resources. Examples of use include
continuing professional development for doctors and nurses, and training on preventive
services at the household level for community health workers. eLearning tools vary widely,
and may allow interaction between the learner and instructor, access to digital libraries and
online courses, networks to share experiences, or the use of mobile devices to access
information to support delivery of care.

4
eHealth: A cost-effective and secure use of information and communication technology
(ICT) in support of health and health-related fields, including healthcare services; health
surveillance; health literature; and health education, knowledge, and research.

eHealth User: A person who uses or administers eHealth Services.

Electronic Health Record (EHR): An EHR is a digital record built to go beyond standard
clinical data collected in a provider’s office and inclusive of a broader view of a patient’s
care. EHRs contain information from all the clinicians involved in a patient’s care and all
authorized clinicians involved in a patient’s care can access the information to provide care
to that patient. EHRs also share information with other health care providers, such as
laboratories and specialists. EHRs follow patients – to the specialist, the hospital, the nursing
home, or even across the country.

Electronic medical records (EMR): An EMR is a digital version of the paper charts in clinician
offices, clinics, and hospitals. EMRs contain notes and information collected by and for the
clinicians in that office, clinic, or hospital and are mostly used by providers for diagnosis and
treatment. EMRs are more valuable than paper records because they enable providers to
track data over time, identify patient/clients for preventive visits and screenings, monitor
patient/clients, and improve health care quality.

Emerging Technologies: New technologies that are currently developing or will be

developed over the next five to ten years, and which will substantially alter the business and
social environment.

Enterprise Architecture (EA): EA is the process of translating business vision and strategy
into effective enterprise change by creating, communicating, and improving the key
principles and models that describe the enterprise's future state and enable its evolution.

Health Worker: All people engaged in actions whose primary intent is to enhance health.

Human Resources for Health Information System (HRHIS): A system for collecting,
processing, managing and disseminating data and information on human resource for
health (HRH)

Mature Technologies: A Mature technology is a technology that has been in use for long
enough that most of its initial faults and inherent problems have been removed or reduced
by further development. In some contexts, it may also refer to technology that has not seen
widespread use, but whose scientific background is well understood.

mHealth: mHealth or mobile health is defined as medical and public health practice
supported by mobile devices, such as mobile phones, patient/client monitoring devices,
personal digital assistants (PDAs), and other wireless devices.

5
Examples include the use of mobile devices for:
 Data collection for surveillance and public health (e.g. outbreak investigation)
 Real-time monitoring of an individual’s health
 Treatment support, health advice and medication compliance
 Health information to practitioners, researchers and patient/clients
 Health education and awareness programs
 Diagnostic and treatment support, communication for health-care workers.

Patient: One who is suffering from any disease or behavioural disorder and is under
treatment for it.

Patient/Client Registry: A Patient/Client Registry is an organized. system that uses

observational study methods to collect uniform data (clinical and other) to evaluate
specified outcomes for a population defined by a particular disease, condition, or exposure,
and that serves a predetermined scientific, clinical, or policy purpose(s).

Personal health records (PHR): A PHR is a record that contains the same types of
information as EHRs—diagnoses, medications, immunizations, family medical histories, and
provider contact information—but are designed to be set up, accessed, and managed by
patient/clients. Patient/clients can use PHRs to maintain and manage their health
information in a private, secure, and confidential environment. PHRs can include
information from a variety of sources including clinicians, home monitoring devices, and
patient/clients themselves.

Telemedicine: This is the delivery of health care services, where distance is a critical factor,
by all health care professionals using information and communication technologies for the
exchange of valid information for diagnosis, treatment and prevention of disease and
injuries, research and evaluation, and for the continuing education of health care providers,
all in the interests of advancing the health of individuals and their communities. Examples of
telemedicine services are provided below.

 Store-and-forward services involve acquiring medical data for transmission later by

the health-care provider for offline assessment and treatment recommendation.
 Remote monitoring services enable health-care providers to monitor an individual’s
condition remotely, using information technologies.
 Interactive services enable real-time interaction between health-care provider
through means such as telephone, web conference, video conference and other
forms of online and remote communication.

6
List of Tables
Table 1 - Proposed Membership to the eHealth Steering Committee ............................................... 104

List of Figures
Figure 1 - eHealth Strategy Map ........................................................................................................... 29
Figure 2 - Uganda National eHealth Pillars ........................................................................................... 30
Figure 3 - National Monitoring and Evaluation Process for eHealth in Uganda ................................... 70
Figure 4 - eHealth Governance and Management Role ....................................................................... 73
Figure 5 - eHealth Governance Organogram ........................................................................................ 77

7
8
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
The National eHealth Policy and Strategy are directional documents that describes long-term vision
for eHealth, with a strong focus on tangible benefits and deliverables. It also describes the
leadership and governance structure, cantered on the National eHealth Technical Working Group
that will help ensure the timely implementation of eHealth initiatives.

In order to have a policy and strategy that is holistic and inclusive, the development of the policy and
strategy used a participatory process. Therefore the Strategy includes the views of multiple groups
and sectors and is the result of many hours of debate and deliberation.

Vision
Effective use of information and communication technology for better health outcomes of the
Ugandan population.

Mission
To transform the health of the people of Uganda by promoting effective utilization of information
and communication technology.

Objective
To create an enabling environment for the development, deployment and utilization of sustainable,
ethically sound and harmonized eHealth initiatives at all levels.

Strategic Areas of Implementation

• Leadership and Governance of eHealth

• eHealth Enterprise Architecture, Interoperability and Standards
• eHealth Services, Information Sharing and Data Management
• Infrastructure
• eHealth Information Assurance
• Ethics
• Human Resources and Capacity Building
• Mainstreaming Special Interest Groups
• Research, Innovation and Development
• eHealth Investment
• Stakeholder Engagement, Collaborations, Advocacy and Smart Partnerships
• Business Process Re-Engineering
• Legal and Regulatory Framework for eHealth

Principles

a) Client focused eHealth agenda

b) Equity
c) User-friendly technology applications
d) Multi Sectoral Approach
e) Human Rights based approach
f) Quality Information generation
g) Generate Quality Information base for strategic planning and policy development

Governance and Management

9
Successful implementation of the National eHealth Policy and Strategy requires a well-defined
governance structure to provide improved visibility, coordination, and control of eHealth activities
that are occurring across the country’s health sector. The main goal of governance is to assure all
stakeholders that operations will go as expected—that the results achieved will be in line with the
decisions made.

Implementation

The following pillars represent the four key areas where we must excel in order to achieve our
national eHealth vision:

• eHealth Foundations: The basic infrastructural building blocks required to enable the
effective electronic sharing of information across the Tanzanian health sector
• eHealth Solutions : The specific computing systems and tools to address the high-priority
needs of consumers, care providers, and healthcare managers that improve efficiency and
effectiveness
• Change and Adoption: The actual actions that need to be carried out to encourage and
enable participants in the healthcare system to adopt eHealth solutions and change their
work practices to be able to use these solutions effectively.
• eHealth Governance: The appropriate national eHealth governance structures and
mechanisms needed provide leadership, coordination, and oversight to ensure successful
implementation of the national eHealth program

10
1 Introduction
1.1 eHealth Background
eHealth can benefit citizens, patient/clients, health and care professionals but also health
organisations and public authorities. eHealth - when applied effectively - delivers more
personalised ‘citizen-centric’ healthcare, which is more targeted, effective and efficient and
helps reduce errors, as well as the length of hospitalisation. It facilitates socio-economic
inclusion and equality, quality of life and patient/client empowerment through greater
transparency, access to services and information and the use of social media for health.

The eHealth industry is a crucial element in building the foundation for a robust health
system infrastructure and infostructure. eHealth will play a critical role in the development
and application of systems and processes that support quality patient/client care through
evidence-based clinical decisions and in the provision of the right information to the right
person at the right time.

The Uganda National eHealth Strategic Plan guides the implementation of the National
eHealth Policy. It aims to contribute to the attainment of the goals and objectives of the
Second National Health Policy 2010 – 2020, the National Health Sector Strategic and
Investment Plan-HSSIP (2016/16 – 2019/20) by strengthening the national capacity to
optimize the management and use of eHealth resources for better health outcomes. It is
relevant to all strategic directions, identified in the HSSIP. The National eHealth Strategy
(NeHS) is aligned to the eGovernment policy framework, the National eHealth Policy (NeHP)
and is consistent with the objectives of the National Development Plan II.

The National eHealth Strategy is a directional document that describes Uganda’s long-term
vision for eHealth, with a strong focus on tangible benefits and deliverables for the next five
years. It also describes the leadership and governance structure, cantered on the National
eHealth Steering Committee (NeHSC) that will help ensure the timely implementation of
eHealth initiatives.

1.2 Methodology of developing the eHealth Strategy

The strategy has been developed through a participatory process, carried out with extensive
input from stakeholders through workshops, discussion groups, interviews, and review of
the World Health Organization (WHO) eHealth strategy development toolkit and other
international frameworks. In developing the Strategy four broad information sources were
looked at in detail;

(i) International eHealth Policy and Strategy Methodologies

(ii) Review of the current situation and overarching Plans, Policies and Strategies in
terms of policy direction
(iii) Benchmarks with international experience Industry and academic experiences
(iv) Stakeholder consultations

11
These four pillars are put in the context of global policy recommendations from bodies such
as The World Health Organisation (WHO) and in particular its National eHealth Strategy
Toolkit and the Regulatory Reference Model . Through a process of international peer
review and literature analysis, a specific aspect examined in detail has been the global trend
towards the formation of Open Innovation-based eHealth ‘Ecosystems’ and the opportunity
for Uganda to collaborate with international organisations. Through international best-
practice review and key findings, an optimum organisational model for delivery of Uganda’s
eHealth strategy has been proposed including specific actions and timelines for
implementation.

2 Strategic Context for eHealth

2.1 The International Perspective

The fifty-eight World Health Assembly in May 2005 adopted a resolution setting up a ‘Global
eHealth Strategy’ within the World Health Organisation. The same year the WHO set up the
‘Global Observatory for eHealth (GOe)’ with the remit of studying, monitoring and
promoting the role of eHealth in health services and systems globally. The GOe has
published many documents looking at areas such as telemedicine, internet safety and
security, mobility, legal issues and patient/client records. The WHO has stated:

“eHealth is changing health-care delivery today and is at the core of responsive health
systems. The daily business of health relies on information and communication and,
increasingly, on the technologies that enable it, at every level and in every country. This is
equally so in delivering care, deploying personnel, managing programmes or conducting
research. The case for adopting these technologies has been evident for over a decade.
However, it has taken a crisis in the health sector in many countries to move eHealth from
the periphery to the centre of strategic health planning. In an increasingly digital world,
spurred by technological advances, economic investment, and social and cultural changes,
there is growing recognition that inevitably the health sector must integrate ICT into its way
of doing business. This applies whether the goal is to reach all citizens with high-quality,
equitable and safe care, or to meet obligations for public health research, reporting and
humanitarian action”.

In support of this the WHO have published an eHealth Strategy Development Toolkit to help
countries along the path to eHealth maturity. The document outlines a recommended
approach to development and includes considerations such as stakeholder engagement,
policy and governance models.

To ensure that a country realizes the potential from eHealth, it is important to establish an
effective governance, management and implementation structure. To support the
identification of such structure and help define its essential characteristics, a review of
international eHealth experiences has been undertaken to examine best-practice criteria for

12
success. This review included Kenya, Tanzania, Australia, England, Scotland, Northern
Ireland, Denmark, Cuba, Philippines and Canada. These were selected as they represent
various approaches to eHealth implementation and have shown varying degrees of success
and therefore key factors of both success and failure can be examined.

In addition, the review looked at African countries; South Africa, Nigeria, Ghana, Kenya,
Rwanda and Tanzania to ensure that regional experiences are also brought into perspective.

The major output of this review was the definition of best-practice guidelines and criteria to
identify the optimum governance and operational structure required for implementation.
These criteria are used to identify an optimum model for Uganda of this strategy.

The following are a summary of the International Perspective:

(a) Governance. Strong governance and leadership is required and clear operational
models/roadmaps need to be agreed by all early on in the execution phases. The delivery
entity should have overall governance for implementation and manage funding allocations.
The funding should be allocated on a milestone/deliverable stage-gate basis, held centrally
and awarded to local delivery organisations as an innovation incentive.

(b) Deploy in Phases: Using a phased approach to implementation based on national priorities
and building up to scale makes more sense than larger ‘big bang’ deployments.

(c) Enterprise Architecture, Interoperability and Standards: Deployments should be based and
conform to an eHealth Enterprise Architecture, Interoperability Framework and standards
such.

(d) eHealth Services: eHealth Services should be based on an approved eHealth Enterprise
Architecture to enable standardization, interoperability and services that are aligned to the
health care business objectives in a holistic manner.

(e) Infrastructure: Development of a secure network infrastructure is important and this should
be shared across public and private healthcare systems. Public investment in these ‘building
blocks’ is warranted and is a key ‘enabler’ to the applications that will be deployed on top.

(f) Business Process Re-Engineering: eHealth deployments should be viewed as Business

process re-engineering and change management enabling through the use of information
systems rather than ICT projects per se. Much up front effort needs to be directed at
organisational impact analysis and change management aspects.

(g) National Oversight, Local Innovation: A national oversight approach for key aspects such as
standards and interoperability combined with local innovation and incentives should be
adopted.

(h) Stakeholder Engagement: Front line and clinical engagement is critical and these
stakeholders should be ‘champions’ of eHealth solutions. Engagement with further
stakeholders including patient/client groups, advocacy organisations and standards bodies

13
should be factored in early in the process.

(i) Health Identifier: A unique identifier is a cornerstone of most eHealth systems. What needs
to be decided is the format this takes. Ideally re-use of existing initiatives and public
infrastructure is advisable. Proper legislation needs to account for privacy and security
issues.

(j) Leverage existing investments: Leverage existing investments wherever possible. For
example in Ireland the Integrated Services Framework (ISF).

(k) Branding and Awareness: The delivery entity should be strongly branded and there should
be strong and early engagement with the public. Campaigns of public awareness, education
and benefits should be launched.

(l) Skills: The deficit of adequate health informatics skills needs to be addressed. Skills
development and training are therefore necessary parts of an implementation program.

2.2 The Uganda Healthcare System

In planning for the more systematic and expanded application of eHealth to the health
sector in Uganda, it is important to understand the organization of the healthcare system
within the mainland.

Uganda is the country is divided into 111 districts and one city (the capital city of Kampala).
The districts are spread across four administrative regions of Northern, Eastern, Central and
Western. The districts are subdivided into 181 counties and 22 municipalities and 174 town
councils which are further subdivided into 1,382 sub counties, 7,138 parishes and 66,036
villages (Census Report 2014). Parallel with the administration are traditional Kingdoms that
enjoy some degree of mainly cultural autonomy. The districts are semi-autonomous in
health planning and implementation, which is an important point to take into account when
planning the deployment of eHealth throughout the country.

The Uganda Healthcare System is governed and supported through a number of institutions:

(i) The Ministry of Health (MoH)

(ii) Health Service Commission (HSC)
(iii) Public Service Commission (PSC)
(iv) Ministry of Local Government (MoLG)
(v) National Drug Authority (NDA)
(vi) National Medical Stores (NMS)
(vii) Uganda Aids Commission
(viii) Uganda National Health Research Organisation (UNHRO)
(ix) Central Public Health Laboratory (CPHL)
(x) Uganda Blood Transfusion Services (UBTS)
(xi) Uganda Virus Research Institute (UVRI)

14
(xii) Natural Chemotherapeutics Research Laboratory
(xiii) Uganda Medical and Dental Practitioners Council (UMDPC)
(xiv) Pharmacy Board
(xv) Uganda Nurses and Midwives Council (UNMC)
(xvi) Allied Health Professionals Council (AHPC)
(xvii) Pharmaceutical society of Uganda
(xviii) Health Committee of Parliament
(xix) ICT Committee of Parliament
(xx) ICT Association of Uganda
(xxi) Uganda Manufacturers Association
(xxii) World Health Organization (WHO)
(xxiii) UNICEF
(xxiv) USAID
(xxv) CDC - Uganda

The institutions above have been put into consideration when developing the eHS

The Government of Uganda (GOU) has dedicated significant effort, through public and
private providers, to deliver primary healthcare services to its citizens. All the 112 districts in
Uganda either have a hospital or HC IV or both. This however includes some old and
dilapidated infrastructure mainly at General Hospitals (GHs) and some lower level health
facilities.

Currently there are approximately 831 clinics, 2,941 Health Centre II, 1,289 Health Centre III,
197 Health Centre IV, 144 GH, 14 RRH, and 2 National Referral Hospital. About 72% of the
population lives within five kilometres of a primary health facility; however, the majority of
the population lives in rural areas at a distance from hospitals and the care of specialists.

Efforts by the GoU and Partners have facilitated recruitment of much-needed staff
increasing the proportion of approved posts from 56% in 2010 to 69% in 2013/2014. This
however leaves Uganda with a human resources (HR) deficit. This crisis, together with other
challenges facing the Ugandan health sector, calls for the immediate formulation and
implementation of an eHealth strategy as a way of supporting progress in the sector.

2.3 Justification of eHealth in Uganda

Some of the key pressures facing the healthcare sector include the following:

• Shortage of qualified healthcare professionals at all levels of the health system

• Epidemics such as HIV/AIDS, tuberculosis (TB), and malaria
• Limited access to health facilities and to health professionals due to poor infrastructure
• Inefficiencies of the healthcare system
• Poverty
• Ignorance

15
To be able to mitigate the challenges, there is need to continuously improve the performance and
capacity of the supply side to meet some of the growth in demand on health care services. The
implementation of eHealth is looked at as one of the solutions to mitigate the challenges faced in
the Health Care System.

3 Situation Analysis

3.1 Uganda eHealth Situation Analysis

The success of eHealth to facilitate improvement of health care services is premised on
being able to overcome specific ICT in Health challenges, This can be achieved by using
existing opportunities and ensuring that the threats are minimised by taking advantage of
the strengths. An assessment to identify these was carried out through document review,
key stakeholder consultations and physical observations. The assessment included an
investigation of the current ICT services and infrastructure in the country, how data in the
health system are collected and managed, referral ambiguities that result in loss of
patient/clients’ follow-up, best practices for monitoring and evaluation (M&E), and the
information pathway for a network of service providers who could be better supported
through ICT.

A detailed analysis is given below.

3.1.1 Leadership and Governance of eHealth

Currently eHealth leadership and governance function at national level is executed by the
eHealth Technical Working Group (eHTWG) of the Ministry of Health. eHTWG is chaired by
DGHS with the Resource Centre as the Secretariat, and is responsible for the development
of the National eHealth Policy and Strategic Plan. eHealth leadership and governance at the
district and community levels is not clear. This has led to bottlenecks in information flow
between the various levels of the health system leading to poor performance.

3.1.2 eHealth Enterprise Architecture, Interoperability and Standards

Currently there are several standards that have been developed or adopted or adapted to
facilitate use of Information Technology. These standards have not however been reviewed
specifically for eHealth. The development of a National Enterprise Architecture and e-
Government Interoperability framework is commencing by NITA-U. There is need to
capitalize on the existing initiatives to develop this area.

3.1.3 eHealth Services, Information Sharing and Data Management

There are some eHealth services being implemented across the health sector are in the
form of Health Management information Systems (HMIS), DHIS2, Human Resources for
Health Information System (HRHIS) and Open Medical Records System (OpenMRS). The
MoH has a knowledge Management Portal; an online resource that integrates health and
health related information resources from the Ministry of Health and beyond, to provide a

16
single point of access to valuable information that facilitates evidence based decision
making. The affiliated Institutions in collaboration with MoH have some notable eHealth
Services; Warehouse Management System (WMS) and the computerized Logistic
Management Information System (LMIS). Others are mTrac, U-Report; Inpatient and
specialty services, Community Village Health Team (VHT) activities and routine reporting of
data from the Health Facilities to the National Health Data Bank/ RC. There are also isolated
mobile applications developed by local innovators but have not gone fully to the market.
There have been several Telemedicine projects initiated in the country over the years.

The eHealth services form part of the national health information and knowledge resources
existing today. These eHealth services/projects are in most cases stand-alone and funded by
donors. The majority of these projects use mobile phones which belong to individuals.
Others use different ICTs from different donors. The applications and products are not
interoperable and compatible. Information is not shared and the services are not integrated

Many of the existing eHealth Services are development partner funded projects and have
tended to be proof-of-concept pilots, where ICT is introduced (or imported) to demonstrate
innovative technology in a limited context and they lack local ownership, support and
funding. They often stall when the development partner funding is ended. The projects also
fail due to the sustainability in terms of the supporting infrastructure such as affordable and
reliable power, connectivity, etc.

3.1.4 Infrastructure
Currently data connectivity and networking in Uganda covers almost 100% of the whole
country including; urban, district, rural and remote areas. This has been achieved through
fibre for the major towns and wireless (mobile phone) connectivity for the district, rural and
remote areas provided through the government National Data Transmission Backbone
(NBI), and the private sector fibre and wireless networks. The Government has also built a
National Data Centre (NDC) used to host MDA systems. Mobile phone penetration is over
57.6 %, and internet penetration of 39.8%.

ICT hardware is mainly comprised of electronic medical devices, computer hardware and
mobile telephones. However the cost of internet is still high compounded by unreliable or
unavailable power supply especially in lower health units and rural communities. In addition
ICT hardware such as computers are few, poorly maintained and underutilised particularly
in rural and remote health facilities. Currently there is reliance on imported hardware and
software in the face of fast changing technology. This has led to the proliferation of
hardware, software and communication equipment used in the numerous fragmented
donor-funded projects, which do not share information and provide limited information to
healthcare professionals for managing patient/clients effectively.

17
Currently, there is a challenge of complementary infrastructure such as green and
affordable backup power to support eHealth that needs to be considered, there are several
adoptions of Solar Energy, Inverter Systems that could be used to support eHealth.

There are mature technologies that are embraced in Uganda such as Cloud Computing, Big
Data & Open Data, Data Analytics, Smart Systems, Digital Services and Internet of Things.
These technologies have been adopted but not in an organized way. There is need to
formalize their adoption and utilization to gain targeted benefits from them. There are also
some continuously emerging technologies that are upcoming and used in an isolated
manner and need to be explored for utilization.

3.1.5 eHealth Information Assurance

A National Information Security Framework (NISF) was developed and adopted by the GOU
and it has attendant policies, standards and guidelines. Its implementation has not been
commenced in the Health Sector. There is need to review and implement the NISF in the
Health Sector and also develop attendant mechanisms to enhance information assurance.

There is also a Data Protection and Privacy Bill before Parliament for approval into law. This
shall support the implementation of privacy for eHealth. There is also need to review it and
ensure that it takes care of all the requisite privacy issues related to health care.

3.1.6 Ethics
The Uganda Medical and Dental Practitioners Council (UMDPC), Pharmacy Board, Uganda
Nurses and Midwives Council (UNMC) and Allied Health Professionals Council (AHPC) are in
place to amongst others ensure ethics are adhered to in healthcare1. In addition, the
Ministry in charge of Ethics and Integrity is also mandated to set standards for rebuilding
and promotion of ethics and integrity in society2 and the Health Service Commission (HSC)3
is charged with the responsibility of overseeing the dissemination, implementation and
enforcement of the unified Code of Conduct and Ethics for all Health Workers. The existence
of the aforementioned roles provides generic provisions for ethics and integrity that might
apply in an ICT environment. There is need to review the sufficiency of the unified code of
ethics for health workers to ensure that the ICT environment applicability is fully taken care
of.

There is also the NISF and the Data Protection and Privacy Bill developed to cater for Trust,
Privacy, Ownership, Dignity, Equity, and Proportionality of ICT related data. These are not
health specific. There is need to review the sufficiency of the existing initiatives for
completeness and develop supplementary policies for completeness in a health
environment.

1
http://health.go.ug/affiliated-institutions/professional-councils
2
http://www.dei.go.ug/
3
http://www.hsc.go.ug/content/background

18
3.1.7 Human Resources and Capacity Building
eHealth capacity building refers to the creation of an environment that fosters technology-enabled
improvements to health care systems and delivery, including organizational, policy and technical
interventions.

Human resources for eHealth comprise of health workers, IT professionals and electronic content
developers. Health consumers who are individuals or communities also require knowledge
and skills to use IT equipment and systems. One of the biggest issues facing health care
organizations is the ability to attract and retain eHealth and IT professionals.

Most Health workers and consumers especially those in rural areas are not computer
literate. In addition, most nurses and doctors feel overwhelmed by their routine work and
feel that ICT is an extra burden that will draw them away from their core duties. However, in
some health institutions/facilities where health workers are computer literate, computers
are not used for routine official work.

IT professionals to manage and maintain the IT equipment and support the health workers
in the use of IT equipment and systems, are not available especially in the lower health
facilities (HCIV – HCII) and communities

There is limited relevant local content on health issues in local language and culture.

The Human Resource situation is compounded by the non-existence of an eHealth

Workforce Structure and an eHealth Skills Framework to guide curriculum development for
eHealth.

3.1.8 Mainstreaming Special Interest Groups

The need for mainstreaming Special Interest groups ICT utilization is included in the National
ICT Policy and in the National ICT Sector Strategy and Investment Plan, this existence though
is not specific to eHealth. There is need to develop a specific Strategy for mainstreaming
Special Interest Groups for eHealth based on the national guidance and International best
practice.

3.1.9 Research, Innovation and Development

There is growing recognition among the Government, Development Partners, Private Sector,
Academia and the Civil Society for the importance of Research and Innovation and its
potential for the transformation of the country as well as the associated economic benefits.
This has been manifested in the National Development Plan, Health Sector Strategic Plan,
the National Health Policy and the National ICT Policy among others.

In addition, there are many eHealth Innovations that have come up though a multiplicity of
Innovation Hubs. Several ICT Innovation incubations and Hackathons have being conducted
in the country (e.g. ACIA, Marie Stopes Health App Challenge, and Vodafone 2016 Health

19
App Challenge). Although several strides have been taken, eHealth related Innovation is
faced with the following challenges;

 No structured and centralized funding for eHealth Research, Innovation and

Development
 Fragmented efforts in eHealth Research, Innovation and Development
 Insufficient collaboration by the Innovators with the Health experts and other
disciplines complementary to the Health Sector
 Most eHealth Innovations do not translate into marketable products
 Insufficient research support tools (high cost of innovation space, computing
resources, access to online material, internet bandwidth, etc.)

The challenges above are compounded with the lack of standards to support innovation and
insufficient entrepreneurship skills amongst innovators.

3.1.10 eHealth Investment

The Government and the Private Sector have invested in Infrastructure that can be used to
support eHealth, like the National Backbone Infrastructure (NBI), the National Data Centre
(NDC), and other computing infrastructure. These investments still remain fragmented and
Investment in eHealth is mainly in the form of donor funded fragmented eHealth projects.
The Government has also invested in medical equipment that is complementary to eHealth.
The Private Sector on its side has also invested substantially in isolated systems
complementary to eHealth without proper guidance. The WHO expressed willingness to
offer a range of eHealth Services and Tools for adaptation by Uganda4.

The investments are not based on any standard and thus not properly guided. This has
resulted in numerous fragmented vertical eHealth projects/initiatives which do not share
information and are not accountable to the Ministry of Health. There is need to develop and
eHealth Architecture and Interoperability Framework to guide all investments in eHealth.

3.1.11 Stakeholder Engagement, Collaborations, Advocacy and SMART

Partnerships
A National Policy on Public-Private-Partnership in Health5 was developed to provide
guidance to mainstreaming, establishing, implementing, coordinating, monitoring and
evaluating partnerships between the Government of Uganda and the private health sector
within existing laws, policies and plans

There are existing partnerships 6but they are isolated7 and not SMART. There are
opportunities for partnership eHealth that need to be exploited8. There is a need to review

4
http://www.who.int/goe/data/country_report/uga.pdf
5
https://www.usaid.gov/sites/default/files/documents/1860/Uganda-National-Policy-on-PPPH-2012.pdf
6
http://www.swecare.se/Portals/swecare/Documents/Uganda-Health-Sector-and-Partnership-Opportunities-
final.pdf
7
http://www.ictworks.org/2012/02/22/ugandan-mhealth-moratorium-good-thing/

20
the National Policy on Public-Private-Partnership in Health to ensure coverage in terms of
eHealth with measurable outcomes and also develop and implement a specific and
deliberate Partnership and Relationship Management Strategy for eHealth.

3.1.12 Business Process Re-Engineering

There are currently isolated efforts in the Private Sector to review their Business Processes
in order to embrace eHealth. There is need to come up with a deliberate strategy for
Business Process Re-engineering specific to eHealth led by the MOH and this should be
complied to and by the all stakeholders.

3.1.13 Legal and Regulatory Framework for eHealth

Currently the legal and regulatory frameworks comprise of several laws and regulations
which support but are not specific to eHealth, including:

(a) The NITA-U Act, 2009

(b) The Registration Of Persons ACT, 2015
(c) The Computer Misuse Act, 2010
(d) The Electronic Transactions Act, 2011
(e) The Electronic Signatures Act, 2011
(f) National Databank Regulations, 2015
(g) The Registrations of Persons Act, 2015
(h) The Uganda Communications Commission Act, 2013
(i) The Uganda National Council for Science and Technology Act
(j) Uganda National Council for Science and Technology (UNCST) National guidelines for
research involving humans as research participants (2007)
(k) The Copyrights Act, Cap 215, Laws of Uganda
(l) Rural Communications Development Policy, 2001
(m) National Records and Retention Act, 2001

There is need to review in detail the current legal and regulatory framework to establish
whether these take care of all eHealth regulatory areas. There is also need to put in place a
legal and regulatory function for eHealth to oversee the review, coordination of the
enforcement and compliance to the legal and regulatory framework.

3.2 eHealth SCOT Analysis

8
http://www.swecare.se/Portals/swecare/Documents/Uganda-Health-Sector-and-Partnership-Opportunities-
final.pdf

21
[Translate into Strategic Strengths Challenges
Priorities on which the Strategic
Plan is premised]  Existence of political will by the  Insufficient Coordination and
government of participation of partners in
to advocate healthcare reform public-private-partnerships in
and the use of ICT to improve
promoting ICT in the health
the efficiency and efficacy of the
healthcare system sector
Existence of some Governance  Diversity of Special interests
Structures for eHealth (SIGs)
 Existence of medical and ICT  Inadequate ICT infrastructure
training institutions throughout the health sector
 Existence of institutions and  Lack of availability of proper
agencies that are responsible information sharing systems
for provision of various services within and outside the health
(National Medical Stores, sector
National Drug Authority with  Absence of national eHealth
their own data and information strategy to guide
systems implementation of eHealth
 Existence of a national ICT initiatives
policy promoting the use of ICT  Lack of reliable health
throughout all sectors of the information/data collection and
country sharing among health
 Existence of a national e- providers
Government Masterplan that  Insufficient biomedical and
recognizes eHealth as a priority medical informatics experts
area and trained ICT professionals
 Existence of disease  Inadequate integration of
surveillance systems at health eHealth skills into existing
facility level reporting to national health professional training
programs curricula
 Availability of the NBI and the  Lack of guidelines on research
NDC to support data storage and use of data/information
and communications throughout  Lack of compliance with
the country eHealth standards and
 Existence of a National systems interoperability
Identification System  Insufficient Governance
 Existence of ICT Legislation to structures to guide the
support utilization of ICT development of eHealth
 Diversity of Interests in ICT across the health sector
 Unstructured funding for
 Linkages with the Ministry of eHealth Research, Innovation
Ethics & Integrity and the  Rigid existing Business
four Health Professional Processes that do not take
Councils care use of ICT (for speed,
accuracy, efficiency and
proper record keeping
 Existence of a Ministry for
 Insufficient Legal and
Science, Technology and
Regulatory Framework
Innovation awareness, enforcement and
compliance assessment
 Too many innovations –
health staff don’t have the
capacity to keep up

22
Opportunities [How do we use these strengths to [How do we overcome the
take advantage of these weaknesses that prevent us from
 Existence of Development opportunities?] taking advantage of the
Partner supported programs/ opportunities?]
projects  Development of a mechanism
 Existence of appropriate for Governance, Partnerships  Development of a mechanism
technologies and collaboration for the for Governance, Partnerships
 Availability of new different stakeholder categories and collaboration for the
technologies such as mHealth  Develop a mechanism of different stakeholder
 Existence of public-private capitalizing on existing categories
partnerships legal framework initiatives related to eHealth with  Develop a mechanism of
to support eHealth a view of strengthening and strengthening eHealth
development projects aligning to eHealth supporting infrastructure and
 Availability of Internet services within the existing
bandwidth at reduced rates to country initiatives
support data exchange as well  Develop a mechanism of
as communication among standardization in relation tom
health providers eHealth to ensure
 Existence of young ICT interoperability, economies of
Innovators scale and affordability
 Existence of Structures of
General Health Ethics and the
National Health Code of Ethics
 Ongoing initiatives for ICT for
the Disabled by UNESCO,
MoICT and NITA-U
 Existence of Government
Initiatives for green and
affordable power (e.g. Solar)

Threats [How do we use these strengths to [How do we address the

reduce the likelihood and impact of weaknesses that will make these
 Health Information security these threats?] threats a reality?]
 Insufficient of reliable power
supply from the national grid  Develop a mechanism of  Develop a mechanism for
 Financial constraints strengthening complementary preventing, detecting and
 Inadequate application of infrastructure within the already combating cyber security
information security standards existing initiatives in the country related to eHealth
on shared networks  Develop a deliberate  Develop a mechanism of
 Insufficient legal stakeholder engagement, strengthening the legal and
frameworks/legislation to awareness and sensitization regulatory framework for
support eHealth development towards eHealth eHealth
 Low willingness to accept local
eHealth innovations
 eHealth Initiative
personalization and resistance
to collaboration.
 Slow pace of policy
implementation
 Insufficient Government
capacity to investigate and
prosecute
 Bad attitude and low
motivation of health workers to
adopt and properly use
government digital health tools
(already list support to external
parties
 Corruption
 Cyber Attacks

23
4 Aspirations of the eHealth Strategy

4.1 Scope
The Strategy shall apply to Public, Private, and Development Partner, Non-Governmental,
Academic, and Civil Society Institutions. It will also cover full range of healthcare services
from operational, preventive, curative, rehabilitation, research and learning. The coverage
of the scope shall include the entire country.

4.2 Vision
Effective use of information and communication technology for better health outcomes of
the Ugandan population.

4.3 Mission
To transform the health of the people of Uganda by promoting effective utilization of
information and communication technology.

4.4 Goal
To harness and create an enabling environment for the development and utilization of sustainable,
ethically sound and harmonized Information and Communications Technology at all levels to
promote health and improve health services delivery in Uganda.

4.5 Objectives
In meeting the goal the Strategy shall seek to provide options to support decision making by health
care providers, health service managers and consumers of health services thereby making the health
sector more responsive to the needs of individuals, families and communities. The main objective
therefore is to guide the strategic use of information and communication technology to bridge the
human resource and infrastructure inequities that exist in the health sector in Uganda.

Specifically;

(a) To harness Information and Communications Technology to facilitate the transformation of

the Uganda health system and improve health outcomes;
(b) To make patient care safer and more effective by making available the right information in
the right place at the right time;
(c) To ensure equitable access to quality health services for all, with emphasis on improving
access to underserved communities and vulnerable populations;
(d) To contribute to ‘health literacy’ of all citizens for the necessary skills, knowledge and
confidence to manage their own health;
(e) To standardize ICT for Health Infrastructure and services to ensure that they are aligned to
health service requirements and are interoperable;
(f) To safeguard confidentiality, privacy, security and integrity of patient/client information;
(g) To enable more efficient use of healthcare resources through replacing paper intensive
processes and providing better management of information;
(h) To enhance healthcare decision support through the utilization of ICTs;

24
(i) To promote eHealth research, innovation and development including research on the social
determinants of health and the impact on the health of the Ugandan population

4.6 Strategy Guiding Principles

The following principles shall guide and underpin the planning and implementation of the
eHealth Strategy to ensure effectiveness and sustainability of eHealth in Uganda:

(a) Guarantee of patient/client information rights, integrity, and confidentiality in line

with emerging public health access needs: The implementation and use of eHealth
solutions must place the highest importance on the protection of patient/client
health information to ensure privacy and integrity. However, the protection of
patient/client information has to be balanced with the need for the health sector to
manage public health for all citizens, such as notification of emerging diseases or
related outbreaks.
(b) National Infrastructure - Deliver core elements of enabling national eHealth
infrastructure once, rather than duplicating development costs and efforts and
increasing the likelihood of rework. Expedite delivery of benefits of eHealth by
leveraging appropriate existing eHealth initiatives within the health system which are
consistent with the capabilities and priorities of the country. These must be
integrated and compliant with national eHealth standards.
(c) Cost effective, efficient, and benefit-driven solutions in a limited resources
environment that lead to future growth potential: eHealth must be concerned not
just about ICT choices, but also about the relationship of ICT choices to the benefits
they bring in the health sector. It is not the technology alone that will bring these
benefits; rather it is the health sector business processes that are changed by
leveraging ICT which provide the business value, with the right level of organizational
buy-in. Therefore, the ICT investment and implementation shall be driven by the
value they provide to the Uganda healthcare system and patient care. Open Source
Solutions shall be promoted for the development and implementation of eHealth
Solutions.
(d) Technology development, standardization, and convergence: The themes
underpinning developing the technology and standards that support eHealth shall be
the following:
 Focus on usability;
 Convergence on fewer and more reusable, cost-effective ICT systems that are
extensible, scalable, and manageable;
 Common standards and terminology across information systems;
 Involvement of local partners in development and support of information
systems.

25
(e) Stakeholder engagement and Collaboration - Actively engage key health care
stakeholders in the design and delivery of eHealth solutions. Ensure a collaborative
and consultative approach to joint programme delivery by public, private and
partner organisations at national and local level around a common sense of purpose
and working for common good, and drawing on best expertise
(f) Strong leadership and governance mechanism: Successful implementation of the
National eHealth Strategy depends on a strong leadership and governance
mechanism for planning, directing, and monitoring at all levels.
(g) Incremental approach - Build long term national eHealth capability in an incremental
and pragmatic manner, focusing initial investment in those areas that that deliver
the greatest benefits for consumers, care providers and health care managers
(h) Recognise different starting points - Balance active support for care providers with
less developed capability, while not constraining the ability for more advanced
participants to progress
(i) Leverage - More effectively leverage and scale eHealth activity across the country
(j) Balance alignment and independence - Drive alignment of national eHealth
activities whilst not unnecessarily limiting the ability of health care participants and
vendors to implement locally relevant solutions
(k) Build local Innovation Capacity – Build long term capacity to develop local eHealth
solutions
(l) Ensuring availability of local skilled HR to ensure sustainability of the eHealth
solutions: Development of eHealth solutions is complex and time consuming and
requires experienced professionals. Therefore, the development may involve
international professionals with practical experience to ensure successful
implementation of the National eHealth Strategy. However, to ensure sustainability,
the first priority should be given to building local capacity before building more
complex eHealth solutions
(m) Ensuring business continuity mechanism for implemented eHealth systems: This
principle ensures that total cost of ownership is considered in deploying eHealth
solutions and a clear mechanism is in place to ensure that expected service levels are
met with minimum interruption and no possibility for loss of health information.

5 Strategic Direction/Focus
eHealth in Uganda is required to improve the delivery of health through reducing the cost of
doing business, improvement of efficient and effectiveness, improvement in communication
and collaboration, research & innovation, improvement of monitoring performance of
health services as well as reducing the risk in delivery of health services.

The MoH developed a Health Sector Development Plan (HSDP) 2015/16 - 2019/20 as the
second in a series of six 5-year Plans aimed at achieving Uganda Vision 2040 of a healthy
and productive population that contributes to socioeconomic growth and national
development. The goal of the Plan is to accelerate movement towards Universal Health
Coverage (UHC) with essential health and related services needed for promotion of a

26
healthy and productive life. UHC makes it possible to ensure that all people receive essential
and good quality health services they need without suffering financial hardship.

Health can be seen as is investment in information and communications technologies (ICT)

in health and healthcare that enables changes and improvements in clinical and working
practices in order to secure benefits that exceed the costs over time. The complexity of this
requires that eHealth opportunities and choices be identified, priorities set and feasible
plans developed so that constraints such as time and affordability are matched. This
includes adopting an appropriate architecture coupled with comprehensive and rigorous
information standards in order to ensure interoperability and sustainability over the long
term.

The eHealth Strategy focus is aimed to deliver specific health outcomes in the HSDP in an
integrated manner. This will enhance coverage, quality, access and safety of health service
delivery in Uganda through eHealth. They will also progressively lead to increased efficiency
of the health system, and improved health of the Ugandan population which will become
more responsive to its health needs.

This strategy seeks to address the HSDP short and medium term priorities as follows;

No. Strategic Objective Intervention eHealth Strategic

Objectives
Health Sector Development Plan (HSDP) II: “To accelerate movement towards Universal Health
Coverage (UHC) with essential health and related services needed for promotion of a healthy and
productive life‟

1 To contribute to the (a) Health promotion across  Provide consumers with

production of a healthy the life course (RMNCAH electronic access to the
human capital for wealth and elderly). information needed to
creation through provision (b) Provision of Non better manage and
of equitable, safe and Communicable Disease control their personal
sustainable health services. Prevention and Control health outcomes
services  Provide consumers with
(c) Provision of Communicable confidence that their
Disease Prevention and personal health
Control Services information is managed
(d) To ensure that in a secure, confidential
communities, households and tightly controlled
and individuals are manner
empowered to play their  Enable electronic access
role and take responsibility to appropriate health
for their own health and care services for
well-being and to consumers within
participate actively in the remote, rural and
management of their local disadvantaged
health services.

27
2 To address the key Strengthen inter-sectoral communities
determinants of health. collaboration and partnerships  Facilitate continuous
for effective implementation of improvement of the
the following program areas; health system through
more effective reporting
 Safe water
and sharing of health
 Environmental health and
outcome information
sanitation
 Enable multi-disciplinary
 Food and nutrition services
teams to electronically
 Environmental pollution communicate and
control exchange information
 Housing and urbanization and provide better
 School health coordinated health care
 Road safety across the continuum of
 Veterinary services care
 Energy  Ensure the right
 Gender and human rights consumer health
3 To increase financial risk (a) Establishment of systems information is
protection of households for revenue generation electronically made
against impoverishment due (b) Establishment of systems available to the right
to health expenditures. for risk pooling person at the right place
(c) Establishment of systems and time to enable
for strategic purchasing of informed care and
services treatment decisions
(d) Improve financial and  Enable the health sector
procurement management to more effectively
systems operate as an inter-
4 To enhance the health sector (a) Health Systems connected system
competitiveness in the strengthening by overcoming the current
region and globally. addressing fragmentation and
i) Health governance and duplication of service
partnerships delivery
ii) Service delivery system  Improve the quality,
iii) Health information and safety and efficiency of
technology clinical practices by
iv) Health financing giving care providers
v) Health products and better access to
technologies consumer health
vi) Health workforce information, clinical
vii) Health infrastructure evidence and clinical
viii) Health Research and decision support tools
Innovation  Support more informed
policy, investment and
research decisions
through access to
timely, accurate and
comprehensive

28
reporting on the health
system activities and
outcomes.

Arising out of the situation analysis and the strategic focus, the following figure represents
the eHealth Strategy Map to support the National Health Vision.

Figure 1 - eHealth Strategy Map

29
6 eHealth Strategic Pillars
The following pillars represent the key areas where we must excel in order to achieve our national
eHealth Vision. For each pillar, we have identified strategic objectives toward which we strive. Each
strategic objective is then followed by strategic initiatives.

Figure 2 - Uganda National eHealth Pillars

6.1 Leadership and Governance of eHealth

The leadership and governance pillar focuses on establishing an appropriate national
eHealth leadership and governance to provide leadership, coordination and oversight to
ensure successful delivery of eHealth. This is aimed at ensuring clarity of accountability,
transparency, appropriate stakeholder representation, sustainability and effective
leadership and coordination.

Strategic Objective 1: Establish and institutionalize an eHealth governance structure to

ensure effective management and oversight of eHealth Strategy implementation.

The successful implementation of the eHealth Strategy requires a well-defined governance

structure is to provide improved visibility, coordination, and control of eHealth activities
that are occurring across the country’s health sector. The governance structure shall
incorporate the assembly of a governance, management and technical teams to combine
the knowledge, skills, and stakeholder needs in a way that absorbs and takes advantage of
stakeholder contributions on a continuous basis.

30
Strategic Initiatives:

(a) Analysis of the current institutional setting – To establish gaps, needs and propose
composition of the different structures to over all stakeholders
(b) Establish and institutionalize a National eHealth Steering Committee – To set overall
national eHealth direction and priorities; reviewing and approving eHealth Policy and
Strategy; funding decisions and the monitoring of progress against national eHealth
deliverables and outcomes. Appendix eHealth Technical Working Group
(c)
(d)
(e) eHealth Core Team

1) Department of Health Information

2) Department of Quality Assurance

Quality Assurance department is mandated to ensure that health services provided are within
acceptable standards for the entire sector, both public and private health services.

Objectives:

 Ensure standards and guidelines are developed, disseminated and used effectively.
 Build and strengthen regular supervision system at all levels of care in order to promote
provision of quality health services.
 Facilitate establishment of internal QA capacity at all levels including operations research on
quality health services.
 Coordinate sector performance monitoring and evaluation.

3) Department of Planning

The planning department is mandated to; provide guidance to the sector, mobilize resources,
develop policy frameworks, coordinate with other stakeholders (local and international), review
HSSIP & NHP and finally plan for and support capacity building and training of human resources for
health.

Objectives:

 Ensuring that sector Budget Framework Paper (BFP) , Ministerial Policy Statement, annual
work plans and performance reports are produced
 Extending support to sector institutions, LGs and NGOs in strategic and operational planning
 Ensuring that the annual health sector performance report is produced
 Resource Mobilization and budget monitoring
 Policy analysis and production of sector policy documents
 Health Management Information System (HMIS) coordination

31
 Human resource capacity building

eHealth Ideal Governance and Management Responsibility Matrix

The Governance and Responsibility ideal matrix is derived from the COBIT Governance Framework.

Proposed Governance and Management

(f) National eHealth Steering Committee
(g) Develop Terms of Reference for the different Institutions – To develop a criteria for
membership to the different Committees, their mandate, code of practice, expected
results, meeting frequency and reporting mechanisms.
(h) Establish and institutionalize a National eHealth Technical Committee/Working
Group (TWG) - To coordinate and oversee the eHealth strategy, investment and the
execution of the national components of the eHealth work program. The TWG shall
occasionally setup Adhoc committees depending on different subject requirements.
(i) Establish and institutionalize a National eHealth entity – to coordinate and oversee
the E-Health strategy, investment and the execution of the national components of
the eHealth work program. The entity shall use existing structures. The entity shall

32
be responsible for developing and providing technical guidance to the other lower
structures.
(j) Establish and institutionalize an eHealth Regulatory Function – To review and
oversee the implementation of the Legal and Regulatory Framework
(k) Establish and institutionalize an eHealth Project Management Function - To provide
operational and coordinated management of all eHealth Projects to avoid
duplication and also benefit from integrated implementation
(l) Support the establishment of a National eHealth Society – To bring together all the
public and private sector actors in eHealth and ensure collaboration and information
sharing.
(m) Periodic monitoring and evaluation of the Governance Structures’ activities.

An Organizational Chart is shown in Appendix

Strategic Objective 2: Establish relationship and governance interactions with key

stakeholders

The successful implementation of the eHealth Strategy requires a well-defined relationships

with existing Government and other Bodies with a purpose of establishing formal
collaborations in eHealth.

Strategic Initiatives:

(a) Establish the different Government and Other Bodies that are potential stakeholders
in eHealth;
(b) Establish and define the existing Stakeholders’ mandates related to eHealth;
(c) Develop and operationalize Memoranda of Understanding (MoU) to facilitate the
cooperation with the key stakeholders.

Strategic Objective 3: Establish mechanisms for implementation and compliance to

national eHealth regulatory frameworks taking into account relationships and interactions
with existing regulatory bodies and functions.

Strategic Initiatives:

(a) Establish and institutionalize a National eHealth regulation function to implement

and enforce national eHealth regulatory frameworks in collaboration with other
regulatory bodies and the Ministry of Justice and Constitutional Affairs (MoJCA)
(b) Develop and operationalize a monitoring, Evaluation and Reporting mechanism for
compliance to the eHealth Legal and Regulatory Framework

Strategic Objective 4: Establish Mechanisms for linking the eHealth Strategy to Local,
Regional and International, Health and ICT Policies and Strategies including the SDGs

Strategic Initiatives:

33
(a) Develop and operationalize a monitoring, Evaluation and Reporting mechanism for
eHealth towards the NHDP, National ICT Strategy and Investment Plan NDP II, EAC
Regional Health Sector Strategic Plan (2015-2020), African Health Strategy (2016-
2030), SDGs.

6.2 eHealth Enterprise Architecture, Interoperability and Standards

The eHealth Enterprise Architecture, Interoperability and Standards pillar focuses on putting
in place a process and blueprint for transforming the health sector business vision and
strategy using ICT into effective enterprise change by creating, communicating and
improving the key principles and models that describe the entity’s future state. The
enterprise architecture includes the people, processes and ICT and their relationships to one
another and the external environment.

The enterprise architecture comprises of the following;

1 Strategy and Policy The Strategy and Policy reference model is designed to
provide linkage between the architecture and strategic
goals, policies and investments.
2 Performance The Performance reference model describes
performance frameworks and related metrics that apply
across other dimensions.
3 Business Business reference model is a generic representation of
the business processes, products and services that
deliver the outputs of the Healthcare.
4 Data and Information The Data and Information Reference Model primary
purpose is to discover, describe, manage, share and
reuse information within and across MDAs. It describes
best practices and artifacts that can be generated from
the data architectures. It also provides a data and
information governance framework, maturity
assessment and attendant Standards.
5 Application and ICT Services The Application and ICT Services Reference Model
describes the business applications, including ‘Software
as a Service’, that support the business processes of the
enterprise. It includes core eHealth business
applications, COTS corporate applications and end user
computing applications. This shall have the attendant
Standards
6 Infrastructure The Infrastructure Reference Model describes the
technology infrastructures that support the application
and business processes of eHealth and the attendant
Standards. It may include insourced, outsourced or
cloud capabilities. This includes attendant Standards.
7 Information Assurance The Information Assurance Reference Model is a
scalable, repeatable, and risk-based for addressing
information security and data privacy requirements in
the context of Healthcare architecture at the enterprise,
segment, and solution levels. This includes attendant
Standards.

34
Strategic Objective 1: Plan, design and develop an eHealth Enterprise Architecture and
Interoperability Framework.

The eHealth Enterprise Architecture and Interoperability Framework shall comprise of

reference models, principles, procedures and standards with a common language against
which all eHealth (ICT) Investments shall have to conform and be certified.

Strategic Initiatives:

(a) Establish an eHealth Architecture and Interoperability Governance Structure

(b) Conduct an eHealth Readiness Assessment Survey with a view of establishing
existing and required infrastructure, services, personnel, investments, funding
mechanisms, etc.
(c) Develop an eHealth Architecture and Interoperability development plan which
institutes a collaborative, shared planning process to guide the development of an
eHealth Enterprise Architecture and Interoperability Framework.
(d) Develop the eHealth Architecture and Interoperability Framework in alignment with
the National e-Government Enterprise Architecture and e-Government
Interoperability Framework.
(e) Develop and implement National Health Information Exchange (HIE)

Strategic Objective 2: Develop and Implement Compliance Assessment Mechanism to the

eHealth Enterprise Architecture and Interoperability Framework.

All eHealth development, modernization, enhancement, and acquisitions shall conform to

the eHealth Enterprise Architecture and Interoperability Framework.

Strategic Initiatives:

(a) Develop an eHealth Enterprise Architecture and Interoperability compliance

framework
(b) Certify all eHealth investments against the eHealth Architecture and Interoperability
Framework
(c) Set monitoring indicators, monitor compliance, report and act on violations

Strategic Objective 3: Develop and Implement a Review Mechanism for the eHealth
Enterprise Architecture and Interoperability Framework.

The eHealth Enterprise Architecture and Interoperability Framework shall be reviewed

periodically to ensure that unforeseen issues and emerging requirements are
accommodated.

35
(a) Develop an eHealth Enterprise Architecture and Interoperability Review Mechanism
(b) Review the framework after evaluating performance and in line with emerging
requirements;
(c) Revise the framework basing on the assessment and review.

6.3 eHealth Services, Information Sharing and Data Management

The eHealth Services pillar focuses on putting in place the eHealth services and tools that
address the priority business needs of patient/clients, healthcare providers, healthcare
managers by improving efficiency, effectiveness, communication, community education,
(e.g. immunization and other outreach programmes), information and practice sharing data
management and utilization and cutting costs of doing business.

Strategic Objective 1: Establish a unique, standardized, comprehensive and

comprehensible Electronic Medical Record (EMR), Electronic Health Records (EHR) and
Personal Health Record (PHR).

The purpose of the EMR, EHR and PHR are to provide a comprehensive documentation of an
individual’s health information as he or she makes contact with the health care system. It
provides information on services and treatment decisions to enable care coordination
between care provider teams. The EMR, EHR and PHR are also used as a key information
source for longitudinal and aggregated health information, in conjunction with other health
sector data sets, to support more informed health care reporting and research. The EMR,
EHR and PHR shall amongst others ensure improved patient/client care, increased
patient/client participation, improved care coordination, improved diagnostics and
patient/client outcomes, and improved practice efficiencies and cost savings.

The design and deployment of EMR, EHR and PHR Systems require significant process
change and huge investments in infrastructure and training. The strategy will adopt an
incremental and distributed approach to the development of EMR, EHR and PHR that will
focus initial efforts on enabling the flow of quality and relevant health information across
the health care network. It will also support more effective decision making, management of
EMR, EHR and PHR and the timely delivery of systems capability in those parts of the health
sector that are ready to move. This approach is based on the principle of ensuring that
health information is made available to the consumer and care provider at the point of care
through simple facility networks such that district level information becomes more
summarized and aggregated to provide a consolidated summary of facility performance.

Strategic Initiatives:

(a) Adopt and enforce the National Identification Number (NIN) and the Legally Resident
Alien Identification Number (AIN) as the Unique Identifier of every Patient/Client;

(b) Identify and analyse all initiatives by different stakeholders towards the design of
EMR, EHR and PHR with a view of utilization of achievements to-date;

36
(c) Design, adopt and enforce a National Standard EMR, EHR and PHR that conforms to
international Electronic Health Record (EHR) Standards based on the NIN as the
unique identifier;

(d) Develop, adopt and enforce a standardized mechanism for unique identification in
circumstances where patient/clients do not have NINs or AINs such as children and
non-registered aliens;

(e) Develop, adopt and enforce a standardized mechanism to take care of unique
identification in cases of NIN and AIN irregularities;

(f) Monitor and evaluate the adherence and conformance to the unique identifier and
the standard EMR, EHR and PHR.

Strategic Objective 2: Establish comprehensive health facility, provider, and patient/client

registries with complete and up-to-date information that meets stakeholders’ needs.

The Ministry recognizes that developing and maintaining comprehensive master lists of
health facilities, providers, and patients/clients is a necessary step toward monitoring health
infrastructure and services, and that these lists form a core component of the national
Health Management Information System (HMIS). International best practice in eHealth
focuses on developing facility, provider, and patient/client registry systems that can be used
to manage comprehensive master lists of health facilities, providers, and patient/clients
respectively. Therefore, in this Strategic Objective, the Ministry intends to establish
comprehensive master lists of facilities, providers, and patient/clients, and implement a
standard facility registry system that is interoperable with existing and upcoming systems
(e.g. Health Management Information System (HMIS), District Health Information System 2
[DHIS2], logistics management information system [LMIS], human resources for health
information system [HRHIS], etc.).

Strategic Initiatives:

(a) Adopt and Enforce the National Identification Number (NIN) as the unique Identifier
of every Health Provider;
(b) Develop a harmonized data element specification for the health facility, provider,
and patient/client registries;
(c) Provide support to the revised registration process for public and private facilities
and providers;
(d) Develop management and maintenance guidelines for the facility, provider and
patient/client registries;
(e) Implement the facility, provider, and patient/client registry system;
(f) Monitor and evaluate the adherence and conformance to the unique identifier and
the facility, provider and patient/client registry system.

37
Strategic Objective 3: Enable electronic healthcare planning and financial management to
ensure effective collection, allocation, and use of health financial resources at all levels in
accordance with health plan priorities.

Healthcare planning and financial management aim to improve the quality, equity, and
availability of health services by enhancing the rationality and the efficiency in healthcare
planning and financial resources management.

Strategic Initiatives:

(a) Design, develop and Implement a healthcare planning and financial management
information system (HPFMIS) in line with the eHealth Enterprise Architecture and
Interoperability Framework
(b) Integrate the HPFMIS with exiting e-Government Systems (e.g. the Integrated
Financial Management Information System (IFMS), the Prime Ministers Management
Information System (PMIS), the Output Budgeting Tool (OBT), the National
Identification Register (NIR), Voucher System and Electronic Payment Systems
Integration, etc.

Strategic Objective 4: Strengthen healthcare professionals’ human resource management

to ensure effective information management, assignment, development and accountable
use of health human resources at all levels in accordance with health plan priorities.

The MOH launched and adopted the country’s Human Resources for Health Information
System (HRHIS) for collecting, processing, managing, and disseminating data and
information on HRH. The HRHIS has been rolled out at the central MOH, 112 district health
offices, 15 hospitals, the Uganda Virus Research Institute, and Nakasero Blood Bank.
However, information exchange across multiple HR management systems, including
professional registration bodies, Prime Minister’s Office, District Administration and Local
Government, President’s Office, Integrated Payroll and Personnel Management System,
Uganda Nursing and Midwifery Council, all hospitals and other private health service
providers, is lacking. Therefore, in this Strategic Objective, the Ministry intends to integrate
existing HR systems with HRHIS to enable exchange of information.

Strategic Initiatives:

(a) Identify and integrate existing Public, Private and Not for Profit HR systems (HRHIS,
IPPS, etc.) into the provider registry.
(b) Enhance the HRHIS to include on-demand resource allocation, productivity, and
prospective planning.
(c) Refine processes for managing and maintaining the provider registry.

38
Strategic Objective 5 Strengthen the National electronic Logistics and Supplies
Management Information System (LSMIS) to ensure adequate quality and quantities of
health commodities are always available at the point of service to meet patient demand

The medicine and supplies strategy aims to build the capability to provide managers and
facility administrations with accurate and current medicine demand and use data. The use
of quality, timely logistics data is essential for effective supply chain management and
efficient procurement of needed supplies. However, much of the current logistics data is
inaccessible, incomplete, or missing, as is the availability of true demand information,
making supply chain decision making challenging for the MOH and its partners. Therefore, in
this Strategic Objective, the Ministry intends to develop a technology platform that will
incorporate the existing systems (enterprise resource planning systems [ERPs], Web-
enabled Ordering for HIV Drugs System, warehouse management systems [WMSs], DHIS,
HMIS, e-Procurement System for Government, etc.) to assist in data collection,
dissemination, and processing.

Strategic Initiatives:

(a) Implement a nationwide electronic LSMIS to amongst others take care of

quantification, forecasting, tracking, etc., leveraging existing systems.
(b) Integrate the system with existing ERPs, WMSs, e-Procurement System for
Government, DHIS and HMIS systems.

Strategic Objective 6: Enable electronic delivery and interventions of health services in

line with the universal access to the Uganda National Minimum Health Care Package
(UNMHCP) which includes promotive, preventative, curative, rehabilitative and palliative
care.

The HSDP III is committed to the achievement of the Sustainable Development Goals. The
plan includes strategies to improve access and quality of Reproductive, Maternal, New-born
and Child (RMNCH) services delivery. In addition, HIV/AIDS, TB, and malaria are among the
most important infectious diseases in Uganda; therefore, the control, or eradication in the
case of malaria, is among the Ministry’s strategies. Therefore, in this Strategic Objective, the
Ministry intends to use ICT to improve access to patient data and improve health services in
health facilities. In addition, the objective includes using ICT to provide health education
between patient/clients and health workers as well as among health workers themselves.

The prevalence of major non-communicable diseases (e.g., high blood pressure and
diabetes) is rapidly increasing and presents a challenge to our health system and its limited
resources. These chronic diseases require records for clinical follow-up and monitoring, and
their prevention is possible through ICT-enabled community interventions including health
education.

Strategic Initiatives:

39
(a) Develop, Implement and promote a Clinical Information System (CIS) to enable
patient/client identification, tracking, monitoring, and referral of at-risk patients,
provision of accurate information to patients, and improvement of communication
with health facilities in emergency cases. This shall include clinical management,
clinical decision support, pharmacy management, ICU management, laboratory
management, radiology management, picture archiving and communication
management, nursing care management, etc.;
(b) Implement and promote an Electronic Medical Records (EMR) system with clinical
decision support tools for reproductive and child health services, HIV/AIDS, TB,
malaria, and non-communicable diseases (e.g., diabetes);
(c) Implement and promote Health Information Exchange and a shared Electronic
Health Record (EHR) to allow sharing of information among health providers;
(d) Integrate the Clinical Information system with existing ERPs, WMSs, e-Procurement
System for Government, DHIS and HMIS systems.

Strategic Objective 7: Strengthen the electronic health management information system

(HMIS) to support evidence-based health care and decision making

M&E strategies aim to strengthen HMIS to improve evidence-based health care and decision
making for both clinical actions and administration. The MOH has adopted DHIS2 as its core
HMIS software, which includes M&E reporting, data management, and some HMIS data
warehouse functions. The MOH has successfully completed its pilot use of DHIS2 and is
currently scaling up its use for national coverage. However, much of the data, such as data
from vertical programs, community-based health data, and data from some hospitals, are
still lacking. Therefore, for this objective, the Ministry intends to strengthen the HMIS
system by integrating existing system, vertical program, referral data, and community-based
health data into DHIS2, improving timeliness and accuracy, and developing a true data
warehouse that can be used to support this strategic area as well as others.

Strategic Initiatives:

(a) Integrate related information systems and vertical program HMIS information into
DHIS2;
(b) Develop and Implement a community-based HIS that is linked to the HMIS.
(c)
(d) Collect and integrate community-based health information and services;
(e) Collect and integrate health data from referral hospitals into DHIS2;

Strategic Objective 8: Establish telehealth services to enable electronic delivery of quality

health care to individuals in remote areas lacking needed expertise.

Referral hospital services strategies aim to increase access for patients in need of advanced
medical care and improve quality of clinical services in hospitals. Telehealth is the delivery of

40
health-related services and information through the use of ICT in contexts where the
providers and patients are in separate locations. Telehealth is used to improve access to
medical services that would often not be consistently available in remote communities that
lack needed expertise.

The envisaged telehealth Services are;

Clinical video telehealth: uses interactive video technologies for the real-time delivery of
physician visits to distant clinics to make diagnoses, manage care, perform check-ups, and
provide care in polytrauma, mental health, rehabilitation, and surgical consultations;

Store-and-forward telehealth supports the acquisition, transmission and storage of pre-

recorded information (sound, data, image), such as X-rays, video clips, and photos, between
providers and specialists in radiology, dermatology, and retinopathy; and

Care coordination/home telehealth uses electronic monitoring devices to capture patient

physiological data related to symptoms and vital signs in the home environment and
transmit those data to health care providers for review and appropriate coordination of care

In this Strategic Objective, the Ministry intends to use ICT to implement telehealth and tele-
education services to enable provision of healthcare services at a distance.

Strategic Initiatives:

(a) Develop telehealth services and program.

(b) Develop and implement required telehealth infrastructure.
(c) Develop and implement telehealth services.

Strategic Objective 9: Establish mHealth services to enable electronic delivery of quality

health, reduce isolation, amplify the voices of the disadvantaged, and provide means to
individuals to influence health systems.

At least 52.3 per cent of Ugandans have access to mobile phones, according to the Uganda
Communications Commission 2014. And these days it seems like you can do everything on
that smartphone. Everything from email to banking to dinner reservations can be done with
the swipe of a finger. And now those smartphones are giving patient/clients the ability to
monitor their own health anytime, anywhere. Mobile phones can transform the way we
monitor, engage and report our health to our doctors.

Almost everyone has a mobile device, and everyone goes to the doctor and other healthcare
providers. It just makes sense to pair mobility and health together. For health care providers
the end game now is a patient/client checking their own health so they can be their own
personal health advocate. This brings it down to a different type of engagement between
patient/clients and clinicians whereby better and timelier information can empower
patient/clients to make informed decisions but with the support of their healthcare

41
network. In this Strategic Objective, the Ministry intends to use mobile telephony to
implement mHealth and mEducation services to improve outreach of healthcare services.

(a) Develop mHealth services program with the aim of developing commercially
sustainable mobile services that meet public health needs by;
 Developing business cases that define an end-to-end value chain
 Convening key mHealth stakeholders using working groups, workshops and
events.
 Replicating mHealth services that ensure integration into national health systems
 Providing technical assistance for the launch
(b) Engagement of mobile phone service providers in the country and seek specific
services tailored to meet the overall health sector objectives. This engagement will
result in agreements on kinds of services, security and ethical requirements, special
rates and other details that will allow health services to be accessed through the
mobile phones ethically and unimpeded;
(c) Develop and implement required mHealth infrastructure including the Front-end
(used to develop Mobile Apps), the Middleware (to connect front-end system with
the data access layer), and the Back-end (the data access layer or the server side of
the equation);
(d) Develop, implement and enforce mHealth services;
(e) Setup an inter-agency team to determine specific services that can be better
managed and improved through the use of mobile telephony for the benefit of
patient/clients, health care providers and the general public. This shall be reviewed
and implemented through the annual programme of work. The areas to be covered
will include treatment support and follow up services, medication compliance and
help line services;
(f) Develop, implement and enforce a disease surveillance and epidemic tracking
system using mobile telephony involving the private sector. This shall be linked to a
data base to provide real-time information of selected diseases.

Strategic Objective 10: Enable an electronic communication and information sharing

mechanism (for the referral system) to improve quality of service.

Access to medical specialists is a challenge because the health sector experiences limited
health resources. The problem is aggravated by inefficient processes; it is very common for
patient/clients to be referred to a specialist without adequate information about their
conditions, a prior examination, or clear questions for the specialty consultant. Such poorly
organized referrals result in wasted or ineffective specialty visits that further worsen access
to specialty care and impede quality of care. To address these challenges, the Ministry
intends to use ICT to effectively communicate and share information between primary care
and specialty care providers.

Strategic Initiatives:
42
(a) Develop health professional collaborative network using mobile device technology
following agreed-upon usage guidelines for clinical assistance.
(b) Implement an electronic referral system with multiple data entry and reporting
mechanisms (VoIP, mobile, Internet) for providers, management, and patients.

Strategic Objective 11: Strengthen disease prevention, surveillance, and control by using a
hybrid ICT solutions to facilitate early detection and rapid reporting and response.

Disease prevention and control strategies aim to improve disease surveillance and enhance
community participation in health promotion and disease prevention. The use of timely
information is essential for effective detection of as well as rapid reporting and response to
infectious diseases. However, much of the current information is inaccessible, incomplete,
or missing due to the lack of well-coordinated and functional disease surveillance systems.
Therefore, in this Strategic Objective, the Ministry intends to use ICT to implement efficient,
flexible, and comprehensive systems to conduct infectious disease surveillance and
response as well as health education and promotion.

Strategic Initiatives:

(a) Review and enhance the electronic integrated diseases surveillance and response
system as a build-on to the Integrated Disease Surveillance and Response (IDSR) that
is linked to the HMIS system
(b) Implement an electronic information system (including the use of social media,
television, radio, etc.) to provide health education and promotion.

Strategic Objective 12: Establish Intelligent and integrated Health facility management
systems that monitors and manages diverse building management systems in a Health
Facility in real time.

The drive towards a eHealth is not just about providing new services and improving the
work efficiency of employees – it’s also monitoring and managing building systems on an
integrated basis so that medical environments provide the optimal amount of comfort to its
patient/clients, whilst minimizing wastage in terms of resources and maintaining medical
facilities effort in maintaining a green environment.

Strategic Initiatives:

(a) Implement a Medical Facility System that optimises Energy usage for critical areas
using data shared real-time to adjust the demand of cooling and lighting at critical
area, e.g. operating theatre, isolation room, etc., thus reducing energy wastage.
(b) Implement an Automated and networked HVAC systems – This allows end-users to
adjust the heating, ventilation and air conditioning (HVAC) requirements in their
individual spaces, thus conserving energy and controlling costs. In addition, sensors
can monitor equipment for an indication that preventative maintenance is needed.

43
(c) Implement an Automated On-Demand Facilities control – Common facilities
(meeting room, auditorium, training room, etc.) HVAC and lighting can be turned
on/off based on booking status from the facilities booking system, thus saving
energy and manpower
(d) Implement a Lighting control System– Lighting systems today can be accessed and
computer controlled by the building owner or by the tenant via web-based control
systems. Lighting systems can now be linked to a centralized information system that
shows point-in-time usage or usage patterns for either a single building or an entire
complex of buildings.
(e) Implement Elevator control – By network-enabling elevator systems, their
operations can be monitored and optimized. Access control cards allow employees
programmable, selective access to certain floors. Interactive in-elevator terminals
can stream content, ranging from news feeds to emergency instructions. In addition,
elevators can be continually monitored for performance and breakdowns to drive
proactive maintenance.
(f) Implement Energy Management Systems – Hospital campuses consume large
amounts of energy, and building owners want to minimize energy wastage and
utility bills. Energy management systems such as environmental control systems,
electrical power monitoring system, lighting, and machinery and onsite generators
can be network enabled. This allows hospital administrators to monitor the energy
usage and devise methodology to optimize electricity and gas usage in the daily
operation and reduces total energy costs.
(g) Implement Security and monitoring Systems - Ensuring the safety of patient/clients
is also a significant issue for healthcare professionals. By implementing RFID-based
patient/client location and tracking, and combining it with video surveillance systems
across the hospital compound, hospital employees can triangulate the position of
patient/clients at any given time, to ensure that they can be quickly located in case
of emergencies, or alerted if they leave care areas. Additionally, they can obtain
greater visibility into inventory, and track the real-time location of high-value assets
and life-saving equipment, substantially increasing safety and operational
efficiencies. Finally, such an integrated system will also be effective in identifying
hazardous situations, such as fires, and to send messages rapidly to response teams,
allowing for fast decision making and action.
(h) Implement Parking control Systems – Entry to parking areas can be controlled via
access cards or other electronic identification methods. In addition to access control,
parking systems can integrate with security, lighting, elevator and HVAC systems.
These systems can be programmed to turn on and off for the individual tenant when
they enter the parking structure. Parking costs can be monitored and accounted for
electronically, reducing administrative overheads.
(i) Implement Access control Systems – Access control can also be managed on a
granular level depending on the location, or status of the employee. For example

44
non-Operational Theatre (OT) staff may not have access to operating rooms during a
surgical procedure. Hospitals may also want to control visitor access to wards during
specific periods, especially those wards with quarantined patients.

Strategic Objective 13: Establish an eHealth Data, Information and Knowledge

Management, Analysis and Utilization System.

The Strategic Objective aims at providing for the collection, quality review, aggregation and
reporting of health-related data for clinical and system-wide use.

The implementation of this objective requires a number of sophisticated systems and tools
that are designed to anonymize, de-duplicate, aggregate, and analyse the vast amount of
digital health data created in Uganda. Data analytics has been used extensively and
successfully in many other industries but is still in its infancy in the health sector. Some of
the challenges lie with the very nature of this data, which is can be described by:

(a) Volume of data collected at any moment (quantity);

(b) Velocity in which this data is created (speed);
(c) Variety of the various types of data available (specialization); and
(d) Veracity of the information from a clinical perspective (quality).

These services will provide a data management, data analytics and health intelligence
platform with access, as permitted by privacy regulations, to clinical data that is available in
the clinical repositories and in the local EMRs systems across the country.

Strategic Initiatives:

(a) Develop an eHealth Data, Information and Knowledge Management Guideline

defining data, information and knowledge lifecycle responsibilities and requirements
(e.g. Processes, Data Ownership / Stewardship, Audit, Creation and Collection,
Analysis, Retention and Disposal, Data Quality, etc.);
(b) Develop a Right to Use Policy - Defining the purposes for which health data can be
used by providers in the direct delivery of care to the patient (e.g. “Need to Know”
rules);
(c) Develop Data, Information and knowledge Sharing Agreements - Defining the
purposes for which health data may be shared between organizations and terms of
responsibilities that must be observed by all custodians of that data;
(d) Develop data analysis requirements, methods and reporting mechanisms;
(e) Creation of consistent national health data standards, definitions and dictionaries in
accordance with the eHealth Enterprise Architecture
(f) Map data sources and storage of data to allow for optimisation of data flow patterns
that enable timely and accurate data collection
(g) Develop a reporting process and key indicators that are consistent National analytics
and reporting capabilities that are aligned across Central and Local Government

45
perspectives to provide standard insights into performance of the Health Sector
towards the HSDP, NDP II and SDGs and operational effectiveness of Medical
Facilities;
(h) Develop a National Health Digital Content Strategy;
(i) Review and Strengthen the MoH Website in line with the Guidelines for
Development and Management of Government MDA Websites;
(j) Strengthen the MoH Knowledge Management Portal 9 to include amongst others
Business Intelligence, Content Management, Data Management and a Data
Warehouse/Data Mart.

6.4 Infrastructure
The Infrastructure Pillar focuses on putting in place the foundation that supports health
information exchange, i.e. the sharing of health information across geographical and health
sector boundaries, and implementation of innovative ways to deliver health services and
information. Infrastructure includes computing infrastructure, databases, directory services,
infrastructure development & management, connectivity and storage. This also includes
complementary infrastructure like power, buildings, etc.

Strategic Objective 1: Strengthen Core ICT infrastructure and affordability to improve

communication and information sharing across the health systems and at all levels

ICT infrastructure forms the foundations for electronic communication and information
sharing across geographical and health-sector boundaries. This includes the computing
infrastructure, databases, directory services, network connectivity and storage that
underpin a national eHealth environment. Although there are several initiatives for
establishing ICT infrastructure by the Government, the health sector is still characterized by
limited and inadequate ICT infrastructure, which presents significant obstacles to the
deployment of eHealth services. Therefore, in this strategic objective the Ministry intends to
establish a cost-effective and affordable ICT infrastructure to support communication and
sharing of information across the continuum of the healthcare system.

Strategic Initiatives:

(a) Facilitate health sector institutions, including health facilities and training institutions
to establish ICT strategic plans that are aligned with their respective business
objectives, functions, priorities and the National eHealth Strategy;
(b) Coordinate and support health sector institutions, including health facilities, and
training institutions to establish sustainable ICT infrastructure and services in
conformance with the National eHealth Enterprise Architecture and Interoperability
Framework;
(c) Develop and enforce a minimum Infrastructure Requirements Guidelines in all health
sector institutions, including health facilities;
9
http://library.health.go.ug/

46
(d) Develop and enforce an eHealth Infrastructure Maintenance, Upgrade and Disposal
Standard Operating Procedure (SOP) in all health sector institutions, including health
facilities;
(e) Link Health Facility Accreditation to the Minimum Infrastructure and Standard
Operating Procedure Requirements;
(f) Connect Health Sector Institutions and Facilities ( Appendix F) ) to the National
Backbone Infrastructure (through appropriate last mile solutions) as a priority in
order to share a common connectivity advantage;
(g) Utilize the National Data Centre (NDC) to host Health Sector Data/Information and
Services
(h) Utilize the National Backbone Infrastructure (NBI) for eHealth information/data
communication;
(i) Aggregate eHealth demand and business needs across eHealth Stakeholders with a
view of facilitating bulk procurement of infrastructure.

Strategic Objective 2: Adopt green and affordable Power for eHealth

To facilitate affordable and constant power provision to support the uninterrupted

utilization of ICTs in delivery of healthcare services, all health practitioners (including public
and private) need to develop, utilize and maintain green and affordable backup power
system in conformance with the Renewable Energy Policy of Uganda.

Strategic Initiatives:

(a) Identify and review the current green and affordable power for eHealth initiatives
implemented;
(b) Design a green and affordable power for eHealth Guideline in consultation with the
Ministry of Energy;
(c) Support the development, installation and maintenance of a green and affordable
power primary and backup system in conformance with the Green and Affordable
power for eHealth Guideline;
(d) Monitoring the operationalization of the Institutional green and affordable power
backup systems.

Strategic Objective 3: Ensure eHealth ready Medical Facility Building Infrastructure

The drive towards a Connected Medical Facilities is not just about providing new services
and improving the work efficiency of employees – it’s also monitoring and managing
building systems on an integrated basis so that medical environments provide the optimal
amount of comfort to its patient/clients, whilst minimizing wastage in terms of resources
and maintaining the facilities effort in maintaining a green environment.

Strategic Initiatives:

47
(a) Design a Medical Facilities Building Guidelines to support eHealth in line with the
Building Control Act;
(b) Setup a Medical Facilities Building Control Committee to oversee the adherence to
the Guidelines
(c) Monitoring the operationalization of the eHealth Medical Facility and institutions
readiness.

Strategic Objective 4: Utilize Appropriate Mature and Emerging Technologies to enhance

core eHealth Services

This Strategic Objective aims at building a core set of technologies that have matured and
those emerging that have a great potential to improve eHealth development impacts and
empower communities.

Strategic Initiatives:

(a) Assess Appropriateness of Mature and Emerging Technologies for support of Health
in the Ugandan Situation;
(b) Develop and implement a Big Data and Open data Guidelines for health to facilitate
analytics, research and innovation
(c) Develop a Social Media Guidelines for Health
(d) Develop an Internet of Things utilization Guidelines for Health
(e) Develop a cloud computing Guidelines for eHealth leveraging existing initiatives by
NITA-U and the Private Sector
(f) Develop Digital Services Guidelines for Health leveraging existing initiatives by
MoICT & NG, NITA-U and the private Sector
(g) Develop a Smart Systems Guidelines for Health leveraging existing initiatives by
MoICT & NG, NITA-U, KCCA and the Private Sector
(h) Continuously Identify and Review Emerging Technologies in Healthcare to establish
their applicability in the Ugandan Healthcare Environment.

6.5 Ethics
The Ethics Pillar focuses on ensuring preservation of ethics and integrity in the provision and
receipt of healthcare services in an ICT environment by all stakeholders.

The

Strategic Objective 1: eHealth Ethical Standards and guidelines shall be put in place in
conformance to cultural and religious values as well as international best practice.

This Strategic Objective aims to ensure uniformity in the principles for assurance,
consistency and confidence to all users of professional eHealth services.

Strategic Initiatives:

48
(a) Review of the existing Standards for Ethics (Medical Practice, ICT, Public Service,
Regional, International and any other related) to establish requirements for eHealth
(b) Develop eHealth Ethics Standards and Guidelines as part of the eHealth Enterprise
Architecture and Interoperability Framework
(c) Disseminate and sensitize all stakeholders about the eHealth Ethics Standards and
Guidelines
(d) Enforce the eHealth Ethics Standards and Guidelines
(e) Monitor Compliance to the eHealth Ethics Standards and Guidelines

Strategic Objective 2: eHealth Code of Ethics shall be put in place, complied to and
enforced.

This Strategic Objective aims to ensure that stakeholder can confidently and with full
understanding of known risks realise the potential of eHealth in managing their own health
and the health of those in their care.

Strategic Initiatives:

(a) Review of the existing Codes of Ethics (International, Regional, National, Medical
Practice, ICT, Public Service and any other related) to establish requirements for
eHealth
(b) Develop an eHealth Code of Ethics
(c) Disseminate and sensitize all stakeholders about the eHealth Code of Ethics
(d) Enforce the eHealth Code of Ethics
(e) Monitor Compliance to the eHealth Code of Ethics

6.6 eHealth Information Assurance

Health information technology promises a number of potential benefits for individuals,
health care providers, and the nation’s health care system. It has the ability to advance
clinical care, improve population health, and reduce costs. At the same time, this
environment also poses new challenges and opportunities for protecting individually
identifiable health information. Several general laws, policies and regulations are in place to
help protect electronic information privacy and security.

There is a National Information Security Framework that includes attendant policies,

guidelines and standards for electronic information security. In the same vein, there is a
Data Protection and Privacy.

Although, laws, policies and regulations related to security and privacy of information exist,
data safety and privacy in eHealth has been violated in a number of instances. This is
because security regarding the confidentiality, availability and integrity of data and
information has not been defined and backed by an official procedure. The form in which
data and information should be transmitted and the encryption methodology is also non-

49
existent. Procedures regarding responsibility and accountability in the use of passwords and
access privileges are not fully implemented.

Patient/client identifiable information could be viewed by third party vendors and the
transmission of data and information via the internet or WAN is not well regulated. Business
continuity plans and disaster recovery procedures are non-existent. There is no
standardized information on the ownership of patient/client identifiable data. Computing
equipment are susceptible to external threats like viruses, worms and hacking of corporate
networks.

There is the urgent need for strategies that protect privacy and security while permitting
critical analytic uses of health data and multipurpose data standards that meet the needs of
the diverse groups that record and use health information.

Strategic Objective 1: Enhance Information Security to ensure confidentiality, integrity,

quality and availability of information when designing, procuring, implementing,
maintaining and retiring eHealth Infrastructure and Solutions.

Strategic Initiatives:

(a) Review the National Information Security Framework (NISF) together with other
relevant Government MDAs to evaluate whether it takes care of all the electronic
health information security requirements in line with existing regulatory
environment (e.g. local content, Access to Information Act and international best
practice
(b) Develop, operationalize and maintain an Institutional eHealth Information Security
Guidelines that comprises comprehensive and aligned Information security
safeguards, and programs, practices, processes, tools and techniques in
conformance with the NISF.
(c) Monitor and evaluate compliance to the electronic health information security
guideline by all stakeholders.

Strategic Objective 2: Enhance Information Protection and Privacy to ensure electronic

Health information is protected and privacy maintained

This Strategic Objective is aimed at ensuring that all health practitioners (including public
and private) protect Personal Information (PI) Privacy and Personal Health Information
(PHI).

Strategic Initiatives:

(a) Review the Data Protection and Privacy Law together with other relevant
Government MDAs to evaluate whether it takes care of all the electronic health
information privacy requirements in line with international best practice

50
(b) Develop, operationalize and maintain an Institutional eHealth Information Privacy
and Protection Guidelines that comprises comprehensive and aligned safeguards for
PI & PHI, and programs, practices, processes, tools and techniques in conformance
with the Uganda Data Protection and Privacy Law and Regulations and the Global
Health Information Privacy and Protection Statement (GHIPPS).
(c) Develop a protocol and procedure of data handling in the health sector, research
and training institutions to ensure appropriate disclosure, systems for authorization
and consent for all aspects of personal and service data.
(d) Monitor and evaluate compliance to electronic health information privacy by all
Stakeholders
(e) Conduct Personal Information Privacy training and awareness;
(f) Publish Privacy policies and practices for all Stakeholders.

Strategic Objective 3: Ensure Business Continuity and Disaster Recovery when utilizing
eHealth

Business Continuity and Disaster Recovery (BCDR or BC/DR) are closely related practices
that describe the preparation for unforeseen risks to continued operations. This is more so
true with the increasing reliance of ICT for Health.

Strategic Initiatives:

(a) Review the National Information Security Framework (NISF) together with other
relevant Government MDAs to evaluate whether it takes care of all the electronic
health information business continuity and disaster recovery requirements in line
with international best practice
(b) Develop, operationalize and maintain a Business Continuity and Disaster Recovery
Plan for eHealth.
(c) Monitor and evaluate compliance to the Business Continuity and Disaster Recovery
Plan by all Stakeholders.

6.7 Human Resources and Capacity Building

There is a clearly identified need to support the national eHealth Strategy with sufficient
numbers of skilled health IT resources as this is a critical factor for successful
implementation of a national eHealth10. The building of Uganda’s eHealth Human Resources
and skills capacity and capability requires concerted strategies.

Strategic Objective 1: Evaluate the current readiness and enhance capacity of the Health
Worker to embrace and support the implementation of eHealth

There is need to understand the current status of the health workers competences and skills
required for eHealth. Furthermore there is need to develop/adopt/adapt eHealth Skill set

10
http://www.who.int/goe/data/country_report/uga.pdf,

51
and competencies that shall be used for the evaluation and development of the right
curriculum. Therefore, in this objective, the Ministry plans to evaluate the skills and
competencies of its health professionals and subsequently design a standard framework to
be followed in developing curriculums for eHealth.

Strategic Initiatives:

(a) Design and conduct a Workforce, Training and Skills needs assessment for eHealth;

(b) Develop an eHealth Workforce Structure that shall be complied to by all levels of
healthcare;

(c) Develop, adopt or adapt an eHealth skills and competencies framework;

(d) Review Health practice training, standards and accreditation to include eHealth skills
and knowledge as a mandatory requirement;

(e) Develop and enforce an eHealth Curriculum Framework to be followed by different

training providers in developing and delivering Health training

(f) Review and enforce all current training of health professionals to conform to the
eHealth Curriculum Framework;

(g) Develop comprehensive policies and plans for use of ICTs in health workforce
development;

(h) Monitor and conduct compliance assessments against the eHealth Curriculum
Framework;

(i) Monitor the uptake and acceptability of the eHealth Curriculum Framework in health
training;

(j) Monitor and conduct compliance assessment against the eHealth Workforce
Structure.

Strategic Objective 2: Enable Health workers to have access to continuous professional

development through e-learning and digital resources

There is need to increase production and improve quality of training (pre-service, in-service,
and continuous education). A well-educated workforce is vital to the discovery and
application of healthcare practices to prevent disease, promote well-being, and increase the
quality life-years of the public. Although there are several initiatives toward improving
healthcare delivery through the use of ICT, these initiatives usually overlook a critical need
of using ICT to improving quality by developing and maintaining a well-trained workforce of
health professionals. Therefore, in this objective, the Ministry plans to adopt the use of ICT
to develop and provide continuous education to its health professionals.

52
Strategic Initiatives:

(a) Develop and approve methodology for delivering blended learning, including basic
ICT training for health workers (at all levels);
(b) Develop a program and electronic content for various health professionals.
(c) Implement health sector e-learning platform;
(d) Develop digital resources to enable offline learning for areas with limited Internet
access along with online learning;
(e) Develop guidelines on establishment of appropriate nationally recognized
qualifications in eHealth (e.g. Health Informatics);
(f) Establish a national eHealth knowledge repository;
(g) Develop a collaboration and harmonization mechanism for different sectors,
research institutions and industry in building human resource capacity for ICTs, and
the exchange of e-health expertise between countries;
(h) Establish/invest in national eHealth centres of excellence for eHealth development in
collaboration with other relevant MDAs.

6.8 Mainstreaming Special Interest Groups

ICT initiatives fail to take care of Special Interest Group-specific barriers; such as SIG-
relevant content and digital services, safety issues and culture norms that discourage ICT
use.

Special Interest Groups (SIGs) include but are not limited to Women, the Disabled, the Aged
Persons, the Illiterate, etc. Governments, Technology Providers and Development Partners
need to keep these barriers when developing Policies and Strategies. They need to also
design skills development, training and sensitizations.

The SIGs responsibilities are:

(a) To promote communication between practitioners with an interest in the special

area
(b) To promote education and scientific meetings focussing on the area of special
interest
(c) To facilitate and encourage research in the area of special interest
(d) To propose issues or recommendations for the consideration of the Government and
the Practitioners.

The Practitioners responsibilities are to;

(a) To listen and adopt the recommendations of the SIGs

Strategic Objective 1: Support Access to, Acceptance and Utilization of eHealth by Special
Interest Groups (SIGs).

53
This Strategic Objective aims at ensuring that SIGs have a voice to champion their concerns
about accessibility and utilization of ICT for Health.

Strategic Initiatives:

(a) Coordinate the setup and institutionalization of a Special Interest Group Forum for
eHealth to amongst others;
 To engage the health and ICT communities in dialogue to establish the current
need for ICT in discomfort management and find creative ways of responding to
this need
 To design guidelines of good practice for a more conducive, safe and responsible
use of ICT in managing discomfort;
 To develop appropriate eHealth solutions for SIG’s and increase awareness /
strengthen dissemination of these eHealth solutions by amongst others,
developing Apps for different projects of the SIGs;
 To develop and apply standard review and accreditation process to eHealth
solutions for SIGs programs considered to be of a sufficiently high standard for
practitioners and members of the public to utilize safely
 To provide ICT SIG related training to practitioners and service users in order to
facilitate the use of ICT;
 To monitor, evaluate and research the impact of ICT in clinical practice for SIGs;
 To encourage appropriate investment of resources from different sectors to
support ICTs for SIGs;
(b) Deliberately review the existing legal and regulatory framework with a view of
establishing completeness for all the focus areas of the SIGs;
(c) Develop an Infrastructure, eHealth Services, accessibility architecture and Standards
for SIGs as part of the eHealth Enterprise Architecture and Interoperability
Framework;
(d) Develop Policies and Guidelines for eHealth for SIGs;
(e) Develop a National Healthcare Web Portal for the SIGs;
(f) Develop and enforce a Content Development as part of the National Health Digital
Content Strategy;

6.9 Research, Innovation and Development

eHealth innovation is able to provide new or improved therapies, medical treatments and
diagnosis techniques. Major breakthroughs, which can contribute significantly to improved
health status, are expected in genetics, tissue and organ engineering, surgery and the
treatment of disease. Important innovations include genetic engineering, cloning,
pharmaceuticals, and the growth of replacement tissues and organs.

eHealth applications could reduce costs, deliver healthcare services remotely and increase
the efficiency of this delivery by, for instance, avoiding unnecessary duplicate examinations.

54
Cost effective technological advances, though constrained by ethical debate, will enhance
screening, surveillance, and environmental health. “Cost-effective” medical technologies
often spread in cost-increasing ways. Some medical technologies reduce costs if their use is
restricted to narrowly defined indications or populations, but increase costs as their use
expands. Medical technologies exert their influence through both volume and price effects.

Strategic Objective 1: Enhance HealthCare Research and Innovation using Information and
Communications Technology.

There is a continued need for improvement of healthcare quality and processes and this can
be supported by evidence-based research. Health research matters to all because it
underpins the quality of our health and care services and makes a vital contribution to
health outcomes quality of life. ICTs have a great potential to support healthcare evidence-
based research.

This Strategic Objective aims to create an enabling environment for evidence-based

healthcare research for eventual healthcare process and quality improvement.

Strategic Initiatives:

(a) Create a National Health Care Web Portal for subscription with amongst others the
following:
 An indexed Register of all Health Care Researchers and Innovators;
 A local Health Care Research and Innovation in Uganda indexed database;
 Links to International healthcare databases.

Strategic Objective 2: Establish an open multidisciplinary approach to Research,

Innovation Development, Translation and Commercialisation of eHealth for clinicians,
teachers, educators, and the general public.

This Strategic Objectives aims to create an integrated and interdependent environment

(ecosystem) where companies, innovators, scientists, policymakers, governments,
regulators, patient/clients, development partners and other organisations can interact
productively to promote radical change and innovation in healthcare supported by new
developments in information and communication technologies (ICT).The intention is to
create sustainable, affordable, citizen centric healthcare systems, which leverage new
technologies whilst at the same time stimulating the economy and creating new
employment opportunities.

Strategic Initiatives:

(a) Identify and develop a database of all players in the eHealth Innovation Ecosystem
with their stake and responsibilities;
(b) Develop an eHealth Innovation Governance and Partnership Strategy

55
Strategic Objective 3: Promote Research, Innovation Development, Translation and
Commercialisation of eHealth for innovators, clinicians, teachers, educators, and the
general public.

This Strategic Objective aims to leverage the existing expertise and innovations and also
support the eHealth innovations to be strengthened with the aim of translating them in
marketable products.

Strategic Initiatives:

(a) Identify and prioritize the eHealth research and innovations for empowering
patient/client and enabling better health care e.g. Detection, Diagnosis, Prognosis
eHealth; Standards Localization, PHR, teleHealth, mHealth and Decision Support
Apps, etc.;
(b) Conduct periodic surveys of all eHealth Innovations in the country with a view of
identifying how to support and collaborate to strengthen the solutions;
(c) Develop an eHealth Portal with amongst others the following information;
 All Innovation Stakeholders including but not limited to the Innovators
 All eHealth Related Innovations
 All eHealth Funding Opportunities and Sources
 Priority eHealth Research and Innovation Opportunities
 Linkages to eHealth related electronic resources
(d) Develop an open, standards based technology platform that enables innovators to
create apps that seamlessly and securely run across the healthcare system. The apps
shall be available for use by patient/clients, doctors, and healthcare practitioners to
improve clinical care, research, and public health;
(e) Conduct eHealth Innovations Workshops to bring together innovators and other
players
(f) Develop and implement an eHealth Innovation Strategy and Agenda to include
amongst others;
 A Framework that incentivises the sharing of innovative ideas and collaboration
 Promotion of the use of Open Source Solutions in line with the National Free and
Open Source Policy and Strategy
 Partnership mechanism with existing Innovation Hubs to develop eHealth
Innovations and also leverage the plans by NITA-U
 A mechanism for supporting local eHealth innovations
 A mechanism of patenting/ intellectual property of eHealth Innovations
 Creation of a Community of eHealth Innovators
 Priority Research and Innovation Agenda for eHealth
 Access to International and Regional eHealth Innovation Labs

56
6.10 eHealth Investment
Sustainable and affordable eHealth initiatives are enhanced by; establishment of robust
funding mechanisms, rational selection, acquisition and deployment of cost effective
eHealth systems, provision of appropriate financial incentives to providers, and
implementation of effective eHealth interventions that ensure access to effective health
services for all individuals. eHealth players include the development partners, public,
private and NGO sectors.

Before beginning any eHealth project, financing must be procured and its sustainability
protected over the duration of the project. This requires proper planning and identification
of benefits, so that value for money and affordability are balanced and results delivered as
quickly as feasible. There are relatively few economic assessments of potentially beneficial
eHealth solutions in the developing world. These are to support “policy makers and health
departments to make informed decisions when allocating scarce resources” .The Uganda
eHealth Strategy will contribute to regional efforts in this regard.

The Government of Uganda shall provide initial resources for the national eHealth
Programme within the health and ICT budget. Additional resources will be secured through;
public-private-partnership, development partner support and private sector investment.

Implementation of the National Health insurance scheme will also help realise funds for
eHealth through integrated health service delivery

Strategic Objective 1: Rationalize and Integrate eHealth into the national health plans and
budgets.

Rationalization and Integration of eHealth initiatives into comprehensive national plans

makes it possible for eHealth to access financing through the national budget and also
provides an entry point into donor resources negotiated by governments. Integration also
brings with it economies of scale as shared infrastructure and human resources and other
inputs can be made available for eHealth initiatives. eHealth budgets should cover; capital
expenditure, operation budgets, salaries for all staff and costs for training and maintenance
of systems

Strategic Initiatives:

(a) Identify and document all the funding sources for eHealth (including Government,
Development Partners, External Funders, Private Sector Investments);
(b) Develop guidelines for developing, planning and implementing eHealth programs in line with
the eHealth Enterprise Architecture and Interoperability Framework;
(c) Mainstream eHealth in the national health budget and development frameworks in line with
the eHealth Enterprise Architecture and Interoperability Framework;
(d) Provide appropriate funding and operational mechanisms for eHealth to support and in
alignment with the eHealth Enterprise Architecture and Interoperability Framework;

57
(e) Enforce and monitor that all procurements are based on the eHealth Enterprise Architecture
and Interoperability Framework;
(f) Develop, implement and enforce a Cost-Benefit and Impact Assessment Guidelines for
eHealth;
(g) Plan and conduct cost-benefit analysis and an impact assessment for eHealth
implementations;
(h) Enhance the processes to ensure proper investment and management of allocated funds at
the National and Local Government for eHealth;
(i) Conduct Mid-Term Reviews of the eHealth Strategy and ensure that institutions plans are
aligned to it.

Strategic Objective 2: Promote Public-Private-Partnerships (PPP) and pooling of resources

by all partners.

The MOH is facing a surmountable challenge in implementing eHealth projects because of the
following reasons; public sector budget constraint, non-integrated solution (for public
infrastructure/service), public money tied up in capital investment, insufficient creativity and
innovative approaches, total project cost ,time in delivering the project, risks in delivery of projects,
high administration costs, maintainability, and poor project management. The MOH shall put in
place mechanisms to enhance Public-Private-Partnership and international collaborative projects in
research, education and training to reduce the challenges in eHealth project implementation.

Strategic Initiatives:

(a) Develop guidelines for effective collaboration and partnership in the planning, organisation
and management of all eHealth PPP projects and programs in consultation with MoFPED
(b) Implement guidelines for strengthening public-private-partnerships and pooling of resources
by all partners to support a common implementation framework for eHealth.
(c) Identify and prioritize plausible eHealth Projects
(d) Procure priority eHealth PPP Projects in line with the eHealth Enterprise Architecture and
Interoperability Framework

Strategic Objective 3: Develop and implement eHealth investment plan

Information and Communication Technology (ICT) is continually transforming the delivery of

healthcare and system administration services, here and around the world. As such, investing in ICT
and innovation for Healthcare is a significant cornerstone of Uganda’s Health’s commitment to
improving the healthcare. An eHealth Investment plan provides a cohesive and considered plan for
ICT for Healthcare investment priorities to ensure;

(a) Co-design strategic direction in eHealth

(b) Examine challenges, risks and service delivery needs
(c) Determine the investment priorities which will deliver the greatest value.

The MOH shall design and establish an investment funding program in consultation with key
stakeholders, to encourage the development and implementation of high-priority eHealth solutions

58
that support national standards and that can be effectively scaled and leveraged across all levels of
the health systems and the population.

Strategic Initiatives:

(a) Develop and Implement an eHealth Investment Plan based on the eHealth Strategy;
(b) Lobby for the resources generated from ICT sector such as the Rural Communications
Development Fund (RCDF) and projects such as the Regional Communications Infrastructure
Program (RCIP), National Health insurance scheme , etc. and create an eHealth Investment
Fund to develop eHealth applications for rural and remote areas to provide effective health
services;
(c) Develop and implement eHealth Business Process Outsourcing Guidelines to enable
outsourcing some processes in eHealth implementation;
(d) Develop and implement a Joint procurement plan for eHealth to benefit from economies of
scale.

Strategic Objective 4: Reform the Development Partner Support and Project

Implementation Methods

Multi-year development programs are often incompatible with the rapid innovation cycle
needed to introduce new technology-enabled practices. The current methods of
development implementations are through projects (start and an end). Too often, the
sustainability of the solutions and innovations a projects brings are an afterthought.
Furthermore, Organizations are likely to shy away from using ICT solutions for fear of failure
and seldom share results. Individual projects are not structured to contribute to
investments in platforms, applications and devices that have utility across projects. This
Strategic Objective aims at rationalizing the way support is provided to eHealth Projects to
focus more on integrated support to eHealth Projects and realization of eHealth as a
strategic asset.

Strategic Initiatives:

(a) Identify and make an inventory of all Development Partners that provide (are
planning to provide) support related to eHealth in the country, the projects, the type
of support;
(b) Conduct an analysis of all the support with a view of rationalization;
(c) Develop and maintain an updateable and searchable Portal/Database of all the
proposed, current and completed support by Development Partners;
(d) Develop and implement a Coordination Strategy for all Development Partners with a
view of rationalization and enabling joint support and subsequently sustainability of
investments;
(e) Ensure that all Development Partner support for eHealth is in alignment with
national priorities, investment priorities, sector priorities and the local environment;
(f) Strengthen the Awareness and Sensitization for the eHealth Vision, Priorities and
Serialization.

59
(g) Share the eHealth Enterprise Architecture and Interoperability Framework with all
Development Partners to ensure that all support is aligned to it.

6.11 Stakeholder Engagement, Collaborations, Advocacy and SMART

Partnerships
eHealth needs effective collaboration in order to succeed. This can only be achieved by
engaging with all stakeholder groups affected by eHealth. This helps to inform, mobilise
support, identify opportunities, highlight priorities, manage and mitigate risks.

Strategic Objective 1: Identify and engage all eHealth Stakeholders at National, Regional
Internationallevels

This Strategic Objective aims at ensuring that all stakeholders in the eHealth value chain are
identified and engaged to ensure that all stakeholders’ needs are supported and taken care
of.

Strategic Initiatives:

(a) Develop an updateable Stakeholder Register including but not limited to health
consumers, health care practitioners, Government MDAs, Development Partners,
Academia, IT Service Providers, etc.
(b) Develop an Incentive Strategy for attracting Stakeholders to volunteer information
(c) Develop and implement a Stakeholder and Partnership Engagement Plan
(d) Facilitate the establishment of eHealth certification of Health Practitioners and
Providers;
(e) Support the MoLG and District Local Governments to incorporate the eHealth
strategy in their engagement work.

Strategic Objective 2: Create awareness for eHealth

eHealth needs to be demystified using different approaches to enable health providers,

consumers and the general population to use eHealth to help improve the health of the
population. Concerted effort will be made to carry out awareness campaigns in the course
of implementing an actual eHealth project/programme and during eHealth training, because
this yields better results. Mass campaigns will be used to provide larger target groups a
certain level of eHealth knowledge. Each target group will be matched with the eHealth
solutions and systems that are relevant to their needs and are user-friendly.

Strategic Initiatives:

(a) Provide guidelines with clear definition of criteria and targets for eHealth awareness
and progress expected.
(b) Develop and roll-out eHealth awareness campaigns and build a positive attitude.
(c) Develop appropriate communication mechanisms and forums for defined target
groups.

60
(d) Promote awareness of eHealth, specific eHealth services applications, and their
benefits.
(e) Develop guidelines for measuring the effectiveness of the awareness campaigns
(f) Develop a schedule for carrying out awareness campaigns for the target groups.
(g) Establish a framework for measuring effectiveness of engagement and awareness
activities.
(h) Promote and sustain national development of eHealth.
(i) Promote collaboration and buy-in of all stakeholders and partnerships with various
organizations.
(j) Ensure continuous improvement and minimal duplication of efforts on eHealth.

6.12 Change, Adoption, Business Process Re-Engineering and Transitioning

This pillar focuses on what needs to be done to encourage and enable participants in the
healthcare system to adopt eHealth solutions and change their work practices to be able to
use these solutions effectively. It furthermore focuses on how to manage the rapid changes
in technology while implementing eHealth.

Strategic Objective 1: Establish a comprehensive change and adoption strategy to

promote and enforce the development and use of eHealth solutions for both public and
private institutions at all levels.

Although eHealth has proved to bring about genuine potential benefits in many countries,
several practical experiences indicate that the obtained benefits can vary greatly depending
on several factors, including the willingness of the actors to use eHealth solutions to interact
with the health system. Therefore, to ensure the maximum benefit is obtained from the
eHealth investment, the Ministry intends to establish a comprehensive change, adoption
and transition strategy to promote and enforce the use of these solutions at all levels in the
health system.

Strategic Initiatives:

(i) Develop and implement an eHealth Change and Adoption Strategy

(ii) Establish national awareness and education campaigns on eHealth programs.
(iii) Review existing health facility and provider accreditation acts to enforce the use of
eHealth solutions and required standards.
(iv) Build eHealth skills capacity and capability by establishing national coordination of
changes to higher education programs.
(v) Promote and empower local companies with the capacity and capability to develop
and maintain large-scale eHealth solutions.

Strategic Objective 2: Establish a comprehensive Business Process Re-Engineering strategy

to take to facilitate the uptake of eHealth.

61
The success of eHealth implementation is hinged around achieving radical performance
improvements through a clean slate approach for processes, instead of speeding up
outdated inefficient processes with technology. This entails breaking away from the
outdated rules and fundamental assumptions that underlie existing healthcare operations.

BPR comes with the following two challenges;

 Technical challenge: which is due to the difficulty of developing a process design

that is a radical improvement of the current design,
 Socio-cultural challenge: resulting from the severe organizational effects on the
involved people, which may lead them to react against those changes.
 Project Management: This is the challenge of managing the BPR project

This Strategic Objective aims at establishing a way of improving the business processes to
support benefit realisation from implementation of eHealth putting into consideration the
challenges anticipated.

Strategic Initiatives:

(a) Develop and implement a Business Process Re-Engineering Guideline for eHealth
that amongst others includes;
 Setup the BPR Project and Team
 Conduct a Business Diagnosis and Measurement
 Documentation current Business Processes and convert into an automated work
flow model
 Select Processes for Change and Modelling
 Re-design the Business Processes to align with eHealth Enterprise Architecture
and Interoperability Framework
 Personnel adjustment and training
 Management of Change and Employee Empowerment
 Consideration of Outsourcing some Business Processes

(b) Sensitize and handhold different Medical Facilities in adoption or adaptation of the
Business Process Re-Engineering Guideline
(c) Enforce and Monitor compliance to the Business Process Re-Engineering Guideline
for eHealth

Strategic Objective 3: Establish a comprehensive eHealth Transitioning strategy to take

care of rapid changes in technology.

Information technology has been rapidly changing, and will continue to do so at an

unprecedented and perhaps even accelerating rate.

62
(a) Adherence to the eHealth Enterprise Architecture that ensures standardization and
interoperability such that any new technologies can integrate with existing ones
(b) Keeping abreast with current trends through the resource centre to enable review of
plans and forecasting changes early enough
(c) Develop and implement a training and knowledge acquisition Guideline
(d) Develop an eHealth Procurement Guideline that takes care of Vendor Support in
terms of changed Technology

6.13 Legal and Regulatory Framework

The regulatory environment in which eHealth solutions are deployed greatly influences
affordability, availability and adoption. The regulatory environment in eHealth provide
guidance for all stakeholders on effective implementation of eHealth. There are existing
laws, regulations, and policies, declarations that are able to support implementation of
eHealth but need a proper mechanism for enforcement and compliance assessment.

Furthermore, there is need to review the completeness, appropriateness and effectiveness

of the existing regulatory environment. This strategic Objective aims at putting a legal and
regulatory function for eHealth that shall have the responsibility of ensuring the efficiency
and effectiveness of the legal and regulatory environment.

Strategic Objective 1: Establish and operationalize a Legal and Regulatory Function for
eHealth.

Strategic Initiatives:

(i) Establish a legal and regulatory function in the MOH to oversee the legal and
regulatory role, enforcement, audit, compliance assessment and review working
closely with other Regulatory Bodies and the Ministry of Justice.
(ii) Review all the existing legal and regulatory framework related to eHealth and make
recommendations on requisite improvements.
(iii) Establish a privacy and regulatory framework to ensure appropriate privacy
safeguards and consent processes for access to and use of health information in line
with the National Data Privacy and Protection Law.
(iv) Review existing acts for information related to providing patient/client rights. This
includes the existing act defining code of conduct for providers (Professional
Councils and Health Service Commission). This review includes record retention,
confidentiality, privacy, and security based on the eHealth activities.
(v) Review acts that cover sharing of information for the public good, research, and care
purposes (e.g., Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act [HIPAA] in the
United States). The review aims at establishing feasibility of adaptability.

7 Implementation

63
The strategic objectives and initiatives outlined in Section 6 above describe the high-level
actions that must be taken in order to achieve eHealth Vision for eHealth in the short,
medium and long term. In order to deliver on the eHealth Strategy, work in the following
priority areas requires a pragmatic, systematic and coordinated approach. These areas
identified have strong interdependencies and cannot be planned for in isolation.

Successful implementation for the eHealth Strategy calls for the need to comprehend the
detailed structure and components of the healthcare system and how they work together.
In order to achieve the above the implementation shall be commenced with developing an
Architecture which shall ensure the ability unify and integrate healthcare processes across
multiple functions; the ability to unify and integrate data across the healthcare system and
to link up with external partners; increased agility by lowering the complexity barrier within
the healthcare; reduced healthcare solution delivery time and development costs by
maximising reuse; and ability to create and maintain a common vision of the future shared
by both healthcare and IT communities by driving IT alignment.

In light of the above and borrowing from regional experience in Rwanda11,

Tanzania12, Kenya13 and Ghana14, an Enterprise Architecture (EA) approach has been
adopted to guide the implementation of the eHealth Strategy. Enterprise Architecture is a
strategic planning process that translates an enterprise’s business vision and strategy into
effective enterprise change. EA is a well-defined practice for conducting enterprise analysis,
design, planning, and implementation, using a holistic approach at all times, for
development and execution of strategy. EA applies architecture principles and practices to
guide organizations through the business, information, process, and technology changes
necessary to execute their strategies.

Through Enterprise Architecture, the future-state of eHealth shall be defined, the future
requirements, principles and models shall then be compared to the current-state of
eHealth, and then gaps shall be identified and be used as insights to influence plans going
forward.

EA is a complete specification of all of the key elements and relationships that constitute an
organization, including which components need to be aligned to which parts. EA defines the
structure for design and implementation of eHealth systems, linking the systems to be
interoperable and using defined standards, so that health information and data from various
sources can be linked and integrated to provide a better understanding of how the health
sector is delivering overall health services. In so doing, the eHealth as a whole experiences
reduced risks of fragmentation, fewer duplications of effort, and greater interoperability.

11
http://emr.moh.gov.rw/wiki/display/RHEA/Rwanda+Health+Information+Exchange+(RHIE)+Home+Page
12
https://homes.cs.washington.edu/~anderson/docs/2011/hm2011.pdf
13
http://www.afyainfo.org/downloads/finish/3-afyainfo-documents/1196-the-kenya-health-enterprise-
architecture-khea/0
14
https://www.itu.int/md/D10-RGQ14.3.2-C-0012/en

64
The Ministry aims to develop a Uganda Health Enterprise Architecture and Interoperability
Framework (UHEA) to guide the development of the national integrated eHealth. The UHEA
shall document the Health Human Capital Architecture, Business Architecture, Information
Architecture (Data and Application/Solution Architecture), Technology Architecture,
Information Security Architecture, Privacy & Data Protection Architecture as well as the
attendant Standards for all the architecture areas. To this effect the UHEA shall define the
required eHealth Applications, Technology and Standards holistically.

The UHEA shall be developed following the strategic initiatives outlined in Section 6.2. UHEA
shall allow the MoH and other stakeholders who want to invest in eHealth to accomplish the
following:
(a) Leverage what currently exists in the Uganda eHealth landscape.
(b) Understand what the new components are and where they fit into existing
structures.
(c) Define data structures to fit current needs and to support anticipated ones.
(d) Demonstrate how technology and resource constraints dictate both what is feasible
and the path forward.

7.1 Roadmap and Action Plan

The implementation of the National eHealth Strategy is organized into three (3) interconnected
Phases over a Five (5) Year Period, each phase representing a specific stage in the progressive
implementation of eHealth. The phases indicate the main areas of emphasis at a particular period,
based on available resources. This does not exclude initiation of parallel activities where appropriate
opportunities arise.

This approach will yield the following benefits:

Not all eHealth initiatives that have been identified are equally important; taking them up in
phases will ensure that the ones that are most important are taken up first, benefits and gains
from them are visible and faster which, in turn, will impart added impetus to the subsequent
stages of implementation that are more complex.

With manpower resources and budgetary allocations being limited the phased approach will
ensure that not only is the manpower suitably focused to concentrate smaller chunks of work, but
also that the limited budgetary allocations are better utilized.

Doing the implementation in stages will also mean that if some mistakes become apparent in the
early stages of implementation, these can not only be corrected but also that subsequent
initiatives in later stages of the implementation stand to gain from these early mistakes. Doing
everything all at once will deny agencies this advantage.

A staged implementation ensures that parts of the implementation are taken, and successfully
accomplished before moving on to the next stages. As such, stakeholders do not have to wait for a
long time to see the “low hanging fruits” or the early successes. In an all-at-once approach success
necessarily comes much later.

65
(a) Phase I: Establishing eHealth Foundations and Governance (Connect and
Communicate) – Two (2) Years

This Phase focuses on establishing the basic building blocks that need to be implemented
first as they are pre-requisites for all future capabilities.

(b) Phase II: Deploy, Maintain and Support based on the UHEA (Developing and Building
up) – Two (2) Years

The second phase builds on the foundational capabilities from Phase 1 and begins to add
some of the higher level of functionality of eHealth. The Phase focuses on commencing the
deployment and maintenance of eHealth in line with the Uganda Health Enterprise
Architecture and Interoperability Framework (UHEA) to support effective use and
management of health resources (financial, medicine, HR, etc.).

(c) Phase III: Continue Implementation, Consolidation and Review (consolidating and
mainstreaming) – One (1) Year

The third phase builds on the capabilities developed in previous phases to enhance coordination of
eHealth across the continuum. The Phase focuses on continuing the implementation based on of the
Uganda Health Enterprise Architecture and Interoperability Framework (UHEA) by consolidating and
mainstreaming into the entire Health Sector and reviewing. This phase includes;

As illustrated in Appendix A) each phase builds on the previous phase, with no one phase
being entirely independent or discrete. For example, the functionality gained in Phase I,
through foundational initiatives, will enhance the functionality of Phase II and II initiatives.
A phased approach to implementing eHealth allows a focus on accomplishing specific
deliverables and benefits at each phase, and creates incremental successes from which to
build and realize the full vision for eHealth.

While the Ministry is working to develop its eHealth strategy, it currently implements
several eHealth solutions, including HMIS software strengthening, DHIS2, HRHIS, several
other mHealth solutions, etc. The development of the eHealth Strategy does not mean
stopping the ongoing initiatives.

Some activities are longitudinal and will span the entire course of the timeframe while
others may be more distinct. All are captured in the action plan, including the timeframe
needed to meet or sustain each initiative. Revisiting the action plan shall be important to
ensure the continued alignment of activities with achieving the eHealth Policy and Health
Sector Development Plan and the Sustainable Development Goals. As time advances, there
shall be opportunities to assess the status of the progress and revisit the action plan.

The eHealth Steering Committee as the owners of the strategy shall oversee the action plan
with the support of the eHealth Technical Working Group. The eHealth Entity shall
implement the action plan.

66
7.2 Projects and Prioritization
The National eHealth Strategic Plan will be implemented through the National eHealth
Program which will comprise of integrated projects/programmes at national, sector, district,
community and institutional level. All programmes/projects will adhere to agreed national
standards so that information can follow seamlessly as required. The focus will be to ensure
that different parts of the service understand their roles and what they are accountable for
delivering and meeting the agreed targets on time.

A project charter is a primary document used to guide project teams in planning their work.
A charter will be developed for each project, defining the project in terms of its objectives,
scope, stakeholders and major deliverables, along with other required standard elements. In
its governance role, the eHealth Steering Committee shall prioritize and determine whether
projects (as indicated by their charters) are consistent with the overall strategic framework
and National priorities. The charters also serve as a reference point for the eHealth Steering
Committee in its ongoing monitoring role to ensure achievement of the promised project
deliverables and continued alignment with the National eHealth vision.

7.3 Funding and Budget

7.3.1 Funding Model
The eHealth Strategy to realize its vision, mission, objectives and targets requires
appropriate and adequate resources. The financing of the eHealth Strategy shall be within
the broad financing structure and strategy for the Vision 2040, NDP II, HSDP II and the ICT
SIP II. In addition to the formal financing models, other options are suggested. The detailed
models amongst others include:

Area Description Options

Funding sources The organizations and agencies that are  Government MDAs
potential sources of funding for the action  Local Governments
plan.  Nongovernmental
organizations (NGOs)
 Development Partners
 International or regional
development banks
 Existing funding and incentive
schemes (Innovation Fund)
 Health Insurance Scheme
 Outsourcing (Pay-per-use)
 Transnational Corporations
 Civil Society Organizations
(CSO)
 Vendors and industry (health
and non-health)
 Private Sector

67
 Ugandan Citizens

Funding mechanisms The potential mechanisms through which  Budgetary provision including
funding can be obtained from funding Non Tax Revenues (NTRs)
sources.  Public Private Partnerships
(PPPs)
 Foreign Direct Investment
(FDI)
 Debt Swap Financing
 Grants
 Donations
 Co-Financing
 Technical Support
 Loans
 ICT Investment Bonds

Magnitude Estimate of the magnitude of funding that  High-level funding range,

each potential funding source could provide. rather than specific funding
amounts

Timing and duration Understanding of the timing when potential  Short-term

sources of funding may be available, and  Medium-term
over what duration funding may be  Long-term
accessible.

Conditions Aligning any conditions that may be required  Population health outcomes
to secure funding from potential funding (e.g. Universal Health
sources. Coverage)
 National infrastructure
development
 Health system improvement
 Clinical and medical research
improvement

The main driver for the financing model for the eHealth Strategy shall be the National
Treasury. By Government spearheading the financing of strategy, it will be a demonstration
of the pivotal role of eHealth in the socio-economic transformation of the country. The
Government of Uganda is expected to spear head investments in areas that are public in
nature as well as those for improving the delivery of government services.

The Private Sector has been an engine of growth for the country’s economy in general and
the Health and ICT Sector in particular. Accordingly, PPPs shall continue to play a key role in
implementation of the Strategy. The key areas of focus will be in those areas under the
Strategy where public private collaboration can result in great benefits.

68
The Private Sector will also be a major source of Investment. This will be facilitated by an
enabling environment created by appropriate policies, laws and taxation regimes. The
Private sector will also bring in the much needed technical and technological expertise for
the development of eHealth.

The support from the Development Partners will be critical for the successful
implementation of the Strategy. Investment will particularly be in form of direct budget
support as well as technical and financial support to specific programmes and projects. In
addition, the implementation of Strategy shall leverage on the vast experience of
Development Partners in implementation of regional and international programmes and
projects.

7.3.2 Budget
The Budget for implementation of the eHealth Strategy is in alignment with the Roadmap
and Action Plan. The total budget for the five year period is Thirty Billion, Six Hundred
Twenty Eighty Million and Five Hundred and Eighty Thousand Uganda Shillings
(30,628,580,000/=).Detailed Costing and Budget

Values in Millions of Uganda Shillings

No. Strategic Pillar Year Year1 Year 3 Year 4 Year 5 Total

1 Leadership & 121.36 56.40 56.40 56.40 73.20 363.76

Governance

2 Enterprise 2,719.44 2,394.40 14.40 34.40 114.40 5,277.04

Architecture,
Interoperability
and Standards

3 eHealth 6,312.64 283.08 1,565.00 45.00 1,549.00 9,754.72

Services,
Information
Sharing and
Data
Management

4 Infrastructure 1,121.08 1,181.28 1,116.60 1,103.60 1,103.60 5,626.16

5 Ethics 26.72 126.40 14.40 14.40 14.40 196.32

6 Information 70.08 189.60 21.60 21.60 21.60 324.48

Assurance

69
7 Human 166.00 272.72 823.40 23.40 23.40 1,308.92
Resources and
Capacity
Building

8 Mainstreaming 3.36 45 509 9 7.2 573.56

Special Interest
Groups

9 Research, 120.00 852.62 802.48 752.48 752.48 3,280.06

Innovation and
Development

10 eHealth 72.56 315.80 249.00 257.40 257.40 1,152.16

Investment

11 Stakeholder 49.00 379.04 43.04 43.04 43.04 1,757.16

Engagement,
Collaborations,
Advocacy and
SMART
Partnerships

12 Change, 15.00 158.16 41.16 41.16 41.16 296.64

Adoption,
Business
Process Re-
Engineering
and
Transitioning

13 Legal and 272.00 232.00 232.00 232.00 232.00 1,200.00

Regulatory
Framework

Total 11,069.24 6,486.50 5,488.48 2,633.88 4,232.88 31,110.98

The detailed Budget is given in Appendix B).

70
7.4 Monitoring and Evaluation
Monitoring and Evaluation (M & E) is a core part of eHealth Strategy as it allows the
management of implementations to assess whether objectives are being met, or how to
redirect resources to better achieve the stated objectives if they are not being met.

There are two (2) components of monitoring and evaluation, i.e. monitoring the execution
of the plan (inputs, activities, and outputs as defined in the plan) to keep track of the status
of implementation, and monitoring results if the plan delivers the desired outputs and
outcomes.

The Results-based management 15approach adopted in the eHealth Toolkit has been
embraced to develop the eHealth Monitoring and Evaluation Framework. The approach
focuses on performance and on achievement of outputs, outcomes and impacts by:

(a) Defining indicators that provide insight into the adoption of eHealth and the tangible
results for health and non-health stakeholders;
(b) Identifying indicator baseline and target measures to allow monitoring and
evaluation of progress over the duration of the plan; and
(c) Describing the governance and processes required.

The deliverables from each strategic pillar and activities are the output indicators and the
desired eHealth outcomes are the outcome indicators. The output indicators shall be used
to measure the adoption of eHealth and outcome indicators for the results of adoption.
Issues, concerns, problems and/or challenges shall be identified and evaluated during
monitoring and evaluation for appropriate actions. Regular status reporting and
communication shall be provided to ensure delivery of required outputs and attainment of
expected outcomes.

7.4.1 The Proposed Monitoring and Evaluation Process

The process for National Monitoring and Evaluation of eHealth during the implementation
of the Action Plan is show in Figure 3. below.Figure 3 - National Monitoring and Evaluation
Process for eHealth in Uganda

15
United Nations. Programme performance assessment in results-based management
(http://www.un.org/Depts/oios/mecd/un_pparbm/index.htm, accessed 17 May 2012).

71
Figure 3 - National Monitoring and Evaluation Process for eHealth in Uganda

Process National Level Activity Level

Planning and initiation  Define and communicate  Establish local monitoring and
national evaluation schedule evaluation roles and
and milestones responsibilities
 Develop and communicate  Define detailed monitoring
national monitoring and and evaluation timelines and
evaluation frameworks, tools milestones that align with
and templates national timings
 Provide advice and support to  Develop and deploy detailed
activity-level teams in defining monitoring and evaluation
appropriate indicators and procedures, tools and
targets that support national- templates that align with
level indicators and targets national requirements
 Define detailed indicators that
support measurement of
national indicators
 Define target measures that
support national targets
 Define indicator measurement
approaches

Execution and measurement  Provide advice and expertise  Collect measurement data
to activity-level teams on while activity is being
developing indicator measures undertaken
to assess current performance  Develop and track current
indicator measures
 Identify and resolve issues in
developing current indicator
measures

Progress analysis and reporting  Collate activity-level reports  Develop reports that describe
on actual versus target actual versus target
performance for indicators performance for activity-level
Corrective action planning indicators

72
 Liaise with activity-level teams  Identify causes of divergences
to explore performance and in actual and target
understand causes of performance at the activity
divergences level
 Develop reports that describe
actual versus target
performance for national-level
indicators
 Identify causes of divergences
in actual and target
performance at the national
level
Corrective action planning  Liaise with activity-level teams  Identify local actions that can
to understand corrective be taken to address
actions that can be taken to divergences in actual and
address activity-level and target performance for
programme-level divergences activity-level indicators
 Identify and assess  Identify programme-level
programme-level corrective actions that can be taken to
actions to address divergences address divergences in actual
in actual and target and target performance for
performance at the national activity-level indicators
level  Assess impact, costs and risks
 Assess impact, costs and risks of implementing local and
of implementing programme- programme-level actions for
level corrective actions the activity in question
 Review and gain endorsement  Manage changes in scope (if
programme level corrective required) to implement
actions with the Steering corrective actions
Committee
 Manage changes in the scope
of national programme (if
required) to implement
corrective actions
Refinement  Identify national target  Identify activity target
measures for indicators that measures for indicators that
may be unrealistic or may be unrealistic or
unachievable within the unachievable within the
required timeframe required timeframe
 Liaise with activity-level teams  Refine target measures for
to understand changes to indicators to be realistically
activity-level targets achievable
Understand implications on  Agree changed target
national level target measures measures for indicators for
for indicators future monitoring periods
 Develop revised national
target measures for indicators
 Review and gain endorsement
of revised national target

73
measures with the Steering
committee

The derived Monitoring and Evaluation Framework for the eHealth Action Plan is shown in
Appendix B).

The MOH shall incorporate the identified actions and monitoring and evaluation
requirements into different Departments Operational Plans.

The governance model and processes for national monitoring and evaluation shall be
included in the establishment of the national eHealth governance structure to direct,
implement, enforce, monitor, and evaluate the national adoption of eHealth in the country.

7.5 Governance and Management

Successful implementation of the National eHealth Strategy requires a well-defined
governance structure to provide improved visibility, coordination, and control of eHealth
activities that are occurring across the country’s health sector. The main goal of governance
is to assure all stakeholders that operations will go as expected—that the results achieved
will be in line with the decisions made. The governance structure needs to incorporate the
assembly of a management team and technical team to combine the knowledge, skills, and
stakeholder needs in a way that absorbs and takes advantage of stakeholder contributions
on a continuous basis.

Below are the Governance activities that majorly focus on establishing governance
structures and mechanisms for accountability, transparency and leadership.

The Governance and Management structures have been developed basing on the COBIT 5
Framework 16with the following principles;

(a) Meeting Stakeholder needs

(b) Covering the Enterprise End-to-end
(c) Applying a Single Integrated Framework
(d) Enabling a Holistic Approach
(e) Separating Governance from Management.

The Governance and Management is premised on two distinct categories base on a detailed
responsibility matrix shown in Appendix eHealth Ideal Governance and Management
Responsibility Matrix;

(a) Governance, which comprises;

 Evaluating, Directing and Monitoring (EDM)
(b) Management, which comprises;

16
https://www.isaca.org/cobit/Documents/COBIT-5-Introduction.pdf

74
 Align, Plan and Organize (APO)
 Build, Acquire and Implement (BAI)
 Delivery, Service and Support (DSS)
 Monitor, Evaluate and Assess (MEA)

Figure 4 - eHealth Governance and Management Role

The Governance and Management Framework as derived for eHealth in given in the table
below.

Governance/ Management Proposed Governance Alignment with current

Area Establishment/ Function Structures

Evaluating, Directing and National eHealth Steering Health Policy Advisory

Monitoring (EDM) Committee Committee (HPAC)

 Setting overall national Note: HPAC lacks

eHealth direction and representation from the ICT
priorities, for reviewing and Sector (Ministry, Industry and
approving national eHealth Civil Society)
strategy and funding
decisions, and for
monitoring of national
eHealth strategy progress
and evaluating outcomes

75
Align, Plan and Organize (APO) eHealth Technical Working eHealth Technical Working
Group Group

 Developing and overseeing The eHTWG could constitute

implementation of the other sub-Committees, e.g. the
eHealth Strategy based on Enterprise Architecture.
direction from the Steering
Committee
Division of Health Information

Note: The Division needs

strengthening to perform this
role in addition to its other
functions

Ministry of Health Planning

Department.

To mainstream eHealth in the

Planning for the Ministry of
Health Planning Framework.

Build, Acquire and Implement eHealth Entity Division of Health Information

(BAI)
 Coordinating the Note: The Division needs
implementation of the strengthening to perform this
national eHealth strategy, role in addition to its other
investment, project functions. The Division could be
management and upgraded to a Department.
execution. This role shall
include liaison with the
other stakeholders directly
involved in the building and
acquisition and
implementation.
 Coexist with existing
governance functions
operating at a national,
regional and local level. As
such, there is a need to
identify and formalize the
relationships with these
governance functions, and
clearly define how they will
interact with relation to
eHealth strategy,

76
investment and
coordination.

Delivery, Service and Support eHealth Entity Division of Health Information

(DSS)
 Accountability for ensuring Include the delivery, service and
the developed eHealth support function in their role.
services are delivered,
services, supported and
maintained

eHealth Regulatory Function Ministry of Health - Quality

Assurance Department
 Accountability for
implementing and Include enforcement of eHealth
enforcing national eHealth regulatory function in the
regulatory frameworks. Quality Assurance Function.
 The development of this
NOTE: Consideration should be
function would need to
made to recruit Legal
address relationships and
Personnel.
interactions with existing
regulatory bodies and Health Service Commission
functions. (HSC)

Include eHealth regulatory

function in their role

Public Service Commission

Include eHealth regulatory

function in their role

Office of the Solicitor General

Health Professionals Council

Include eHealth regulatory

function in their role

Monitor, Evaluate and Assess eHealth M & E Function Division of Health Information
(MEA)
 Accountability for Include eHealth M & E function
reviewing and reporting on in their role.
eHealth Indicators in
The Project Management Unit
alignment with

77
International, regional and Health Service Commission
national Health Indicators (HSC)

Include eHealth M & E function

in their role

Health Professionals Council

Include eHealth M & E function

in their role

Ministry of Health - Quality

Assurance Department

Include M & E function in the

Quality Assurance Function.

78
Minister of Health

HPAC
(eHealth Steering
Committee)

MOH Senior
Management

eHealth Technical Working

Group

Dept of Quality Dept of

Dept of Health Assurance Planning
Information (eHealth
(eHealth Entity) (eHealth
Regulatory
Function) Mainstreaming)

eHealth eHealth Interest

Enterprise Groups
Architecture
Group

Figure 5 - eHealth Governance Organogram

The detail of the Terms of Reference for the different Governance and Management
Structure are detailed in Appendix Proposed Governance and Management.

7.6 Critical Success Factors

In order for this eHealth Policy and Strategy to become operational and have the expected impact,
the following are the key success factors;

(a) Strong Leadership and dedicated coordination;

(b) Key stakeholders and consumers recognize the benefits and are engaged;
(c) Project Planning and Readiness Assessment to inform Implementation;
(d) A sustainable Workforce Model in place;
(e) A sustainable Funding Model in place;

79
(f) Public sector implementation project sponsorship, resources and funding;
(g) Private sector adoption programmes such as Practice Incentive programme (PIP) and
Accreditation to drive uptake;
(h) Complementary ICT Infrastructure and Architecture in place;
(i) Access and Accessibility Policies and Procedures in place;
(j) Trust in the eHealth services and identifiers with stakeholders;
(k) Legislation and Regulatory Framework to support eHealth;
(l) Ongoing review and evaluation.

7.7 Sustainability
Numerous eHealth projects struggle and may fail to survive beyond the pilot. Despite the large
number of eHealth projects today and positive outcomes of evaluation studies, the actual uptake of
eHealth services is lower than expected.17

There are four (4) major challenges in the uptake of eHealth18;

(a) Low Diffusion: eHealth is not available to, desired by everyone (potential users do not have the
resources, or the need to utilize eHealth;
(b) Low acceptance: eHealth is not satisfying (early adopters do not have their needs satisfied)
(c) Low adherence, also referred to as non-usage attrition; eHealth is not used persistently
(d) Current frameworks from eHealth development suffer from
 Lack of fitting infrastructure
 Inability to find funding
 Complications with scalability
 Uncertainties regarding effectiveness and sustainability

7.7.1 Sustainability Planning

In the context of eHealth Projects, Sustainability can be described as a system that has passed the
pilot phase and is now fully operating19. A sustainable eHealth Service will no longer be financed by
external funds. However, being financially sustainable is not the only important aspect for eHealth,
there is need for Institutional sustainability, political sustainability and technological sustainability.

7.7.2 Sustainability Planning Guideline

A sustainability model shall be developed basing on the following segments:

(a) Stakeholder Analysis: Active participation of key stage holders to develop and implement
eHealth
(b) Research and Analysis: Identification of past, existing and planned eHealth initiatives
(c) Principles and Stakeholder Value Prepositions: Developing a set of consensus based principles
outlining how the stakeholders want to establish eHealth. In addition, it is important to
understand the value of participation in eHealth for each stakeholder. The probability of
successful sustainability will be greatly improved if eHealth can directly relate its value back to
each stakeholder and show a positive return on investment over time for each participant.

17
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/19482542
18
http://doc.utwente.nl/75576/; http://www.jmir.org/2011/4/e124/
19
https://www.myesr.org/html/img/pool/business_models_eHealth_report.pdf

80
While improved quality of care is important to all stakeholders, financial measures are a strong
and measurable determinant of sustainability. Success factors for this phase include the
following:
 An adopted set of guiding principles for building and sustaining eHealth
 A description of the value propositions for each stakeholder
 Connection of the use cases to stakeholder value propositions is important before
funding becomes an issue
(d) Capital and Operating Strategies: eHealth funding can come from many sources. Capital
funding to build and launch eHealth will be different from the operational funding that is likely
to come from participants in some form. It is important to identify the sources for each type of
funding, determine the probability of obtaining that funding, and develop a strategy to secure
the funding required for both building and operating eHealth. Success factors for this phase
include the following:
 Determination of the funding required to build as well as operate eHealth until it is
sustainable on its own merits
 Identification of the various sources of funding and the requirements to secure funding
from each proposed source
 Stakeholder support for the funding strategies

(e) Risk Mitigation: All projects entail risk. Some risks are significant and some are minor.
Identifying each potential financial risk and determining a mitigation strategy is important for
achieving sustainability. There is need to a Uganda eHealth solid risk mitigation strategy covering
the five domains of eHealth: Governance, Finance, Business and Technical Operations, Legal and
Policy, and Technical Infrastructure. Success factors for this phase include the following:
 Clear definition of each potential risk related to sustainability
 Prioritization of each risk to determine where mitigation strategies are critical to
sustainability
 Analysis of the costs and benefits of each mitigation strategy to determine where
resources should be focused to ensure sustainability

(f) Financial Modelling and Scenario Development: Consensus-based decision making is possible
when the intersections of multiple stakeholder value propositions can be identified. The process
proposed for Uganda eHealth is keyed to locating these intersections and using them to obtain
agreement on critical decisions related to the formation of a sustainable financial plan between
divergent stakeholders. Only by finding those critical points that engage and effectively lock in
support from stakeholders can progress be made towards the ultimate goal of sustaining
eHealth. Developing a flexible financial model provides decision makers with the capacity to test
various assumptions regarding sustainability and reach consensus. Concurrent with the
development of the financial model, it is important to identify potential scenarios for how
eHealth will develop and grow. Together, decision makers can model the consequences of
various scenarios on the issue of sustainability. Success factors for this phase include the
following:
 Flexible financial model is designed, tested, and adopted
 Realistic scenarios are created based on various assumptions

81
 Scenarios are tested against the financial model to determine the appropriate strategy
for sustainability
(g) Stakeholder testing and Modifications: Once the consensus financial model is defined it needs
to be tested with the stakeholders for input and additional feedback. As the stakeholders have
been involved in the process since the beginning, their input will already have been built into the
different scenarios. However, stakeholders generally do not fully commit to a project until the
sustainability model is finalized. Therefore, once developed, the sustainability model needs to be
tested and modified as needed. Success factors for this phase include the following:
 The desired sustainability model is presented to the key stakeholders and feedback
obtained
 Modifications are made to the model as needed
 Stakeholders approve the sustainability model

(h) Adoption and Implementation: Once the sustainability model is approved and adopted, eHealth
can move forward with implementation. It is important to have key stakeholders publically
endorse the model, agree to participate, and make a firm financial commitment to eHealth
through the participation agreement. At this point, eHealth may fully move into
implementation, knowing there is a sustainable financial model. Success factors for this phase
include the following:
 Formal stakeholder approval
 Communication of the approval to all stakeholders, including the Iowa Legislature and
Governor
 Participation agreements signed and executed by eHealth participants

82
Appendices

Appendix A) Phased Implementation

Phase I Phase II Phase III

Strategic Pillars and Strategic Initiative 2016/17 2017/8 2018/19 2019/20 2020/21

Q1 Q2 Q3 Q4 Q1 Q2 Q3 Q4 Q1 Q2 Q3 Q4 Q1 Q2 Q3 Q4 Q1 Q2 Q3 Q4

Leadership and Governance

Approval and Review of the eHealth Policy and MOH & Review of the eHealth
Cabinet Strategy
Strategy

TORs & Continuous Monthly Meetings of the Governance Structures

Define, establish, and institutionalize the eHealth Appoint
governance structures

Establish relationship and governance interactions Identification, Execution of the established MOUs (NIRA, NITA-U, UBOS, UCC, OPM, NPA, etc.)
Mandates &
with key stakeholders MOU’s
Established

Mechanisms for implementation and compliance Establish Regulatory Continuous Monthly Monitoring, Compliance Assessment and Reporting on the Regulatory Environment
Function and M & E
to national eHealth regulatory frameworks
Framework

Develop and operationalize a monitoring, Develop an M & E & Continuous Periodic Monitoring, Evaluation and Reporting towards SDGS, NDP II, NHDP, ICT SIP
Reporting Mechanism
Evaluation and Reporting mechanism for eHealth
towards the SDGs, NDP II, NHDP and National ICT

83
Phase I Phase II Phase III
Strategic Pillars and Strategic Initiative 2016/17 2017/8 2018/19 2019/20 2020/21

Q1 Q2 Q3 Q4 Q1 Q2 Q3 Q4 Q1 Q2 Q3 Q4 Q1 Q2 Q3 Q4 Q1 Q2 Q3 Q4

Strategy and Investment Plan.

eHealth Enterprise Architecture, Interoperability and Standards

Plan, design and develop an eHealth Enterprise EA Devp’t Plan, Develop eHealth EA & Health
Architecture and Interoperability Framework. Governance, Vision & Information Exchange (HIE),
eHealth Readiness Awareness and Training
Assessment

Develop and Implement Compliance Assessment eHealth EA Enforce and Certify all eHealth investments against the eHealth Architecture and
Mechanism to the eHealth Enterprise Architecture Compliance Interoperability
and Interoperability Framework. Framework
Set monitoring indicators, monitor compliance, report and act on violations

Develop and Implement a Review Mechanism for eHealth EA Review Revise the
the eHealth Enterprise Architecture and Review eHealth eHealth
Interoperability Framework. Mechanism EA EA

eHealth Services, Information Sharing and Data Management

84
Phase I Phase II Phase III
Strategic Pillars and Strategic Initiative 2016/17 2017/8 2018/19 2019/20 2020/21

Q1 Q2 Q3 Q4 Q1 Q2 Q3 Q4 Q1 Q2 Q3 Q4 Q1 Q2 Q3 Q4 Q1 Q2 Q3 Q4

Establish a unique, standardized, comprehensive  Adopt the NIN as the  Enforce the EMR, HER & PHR using the NIN as a unique ID
and comprehensible EMR, EHR and PHR. Unique Patient/client ID  Monitor compliance and Report of Non-Compliance
 Develop NIN & AIN
 Monitor Irregularities and Report
Implementation Plan
(Nov 2016)
 Identify and Analyse all
EMR, HER & PHR
initiatives (Dec 2016)
 Design & adopt a
National Standard EMR,
EHR and PHR (June 2017)
 Exceptional [Absence
and Irregularities]
Procedures (Dec 2016)
Establish comprehensive health facility, provider, Data Electronic Patient/client,  Enforcement, Utilization and Update of Registries
and patient/client registries with complete and Element Facility and Provider  Support to the revised registration process for public and
up-to-date information that meets stakeholders’ Spec for Registries & Maintenance private facilities and providers
needs
Registries Guidelines (Sep 2018)  Compliance Assessment and Reporting
(Nov 2017)

Develop and Implement Priority eHealth Services Identify and Prioritize and Develop TOR for Identify Build/deploy/scale identified priority eHealth services and/or applications
and/or Applications endorse eHealth Services identified eHealth resources
and/or Applications: Services and/or and
Applications procure
 Electronic healthcare
planning and financial
management
 Healthcare professional’s
human resource

85
Phase I Phase II Phase III
Strategic Pillars and Strategic Initiative 2016/17 2017/8 2018/19 2019/20 2020/21

Q1 Q2 Q3 Q4 Q1 Q2 Q3 Q4 Q1 Q2 Q3 Q4 Q1 Q2 Q3 Q4 Q1 Q2 Q3 Q4

management
 National electronic
Logistics and Supplies
Management
Information System
(LSMIS)
 Electronic delivery and
interventions of health
services to in line with
the universal access to
the Uganda National
Minimum Health Care
Package (UNMHCP)
 Strengthen the HMIS to
support evidence-based
health care and decision
making
 telehealth
 mHealth
 Electronic
communication and
information sharing
mechanism for the
referral system
 Electronic integrated
diseases surveillance and
response system
 Intelligent and integrated
Health facility

86
Phase I Phase II Phase III
Strategic Pillars and Strategic Initiative 2016/17 2017/8 2018/19 2019/20 2020/21

Q1 Q2 Q3 Q4 Q1 Q2 Q3 Q4 Q1 Q2 Q3 Q4 Q1 Q2 Q3 Q4 Q1 Q2 Q3 Q4

management systems

Establish an eHealth Data, Information and Develop an eHealth Data, Develop Data,  Implement and Enforce Data Sharing
Knowledge Management and Utilization System. Information and Knowledge Information and  Monitor, Evaluate and Report of Data Management and Sharing
Management Guideline knowledge Sharing
Agreements

Develop a National • Implement the National Health Digital Content Strategy

Health Digital • Monitor, Evaluate and Report on the status of the implementation of Content Management Strategy
Content Strategy

Review and
Strengthen the MoH
Website Monitor, Evaluate and Report on the status of the MoH Website Content Management

Review the MoH ToR and Rebuild and deploy the Monitor, Evaluate and Report on the status of the KM Portal Content
Knowledge Portal Procure the KM Portal Management
redesign of
the KM
Portal

Infrastructure

Strengthen Core ICT infrastructure and  Develop a Health Develop a • Enforce the requirement for ICT Strategies, Minimum Infrastructure Requirements and SOP
Sector ICT Minimum for eHealth Infrastructure
affordability to improve communication and

87
Phase I Phase II Phase III
Strategic Pillars and Strategic Initiative 2016/17 2017/8 2018/19 2019/20 2020/21

Q1 Q2 Q3 Q4 Q1 Q2 Q3 Q4 Q1 Q2 Q3 Q4 Q1 Q2 Q3 Q4 Q1 Q2 Q3 Q4

information sharing across the health Strategy Infrastructur • Link Health Facility Accreditation to existence of ICT Strategies, Minimum Infrastructure
Guideline e Guideline Requirements and SOP
systems and at all levels
 Facilitate Health and SOP for • Monitor, Evaluate and Report on the status of the compliance to ICT Strategy development
Sector eHealth and implementation, Infrastructure and SOP
Institutions to Infrastructur
develop ICT e
Strategies Maintenanc
e, Upgrade
and Disposal

Connect Priority Health Institutions and Facilities ( Identify/Revi • Conduct Site Surveys and Connect Health Institutions and Facilities to the NBI and the NDC
Appendix F) ) to the National Backbone and ew priority • Utilise the NBI and NDC for communication and Hosting Services
National Data Centre Institutions/F • Monitor, Evaluate and Report on the status of the compliance
acilities to
connect

Aggregate eHealth demand and business needs Identify Negotiate  Enforce the Bulk Procurement
across eHealth Stakeholders with a view of eHealth and
Contract(s)
facilitating bulk procurement of infrastructure. Infrastruct Contract
ure Bulk
 Monitor, Evaluate and Report on the
Procureme
nt status of the compliance to the Bulk
Requireme Contract(s)
nts

Adopt green and affordable Power for eHealth Identify Develop and • Enforce green and affordable power
current adopt a
Initiatives for Guideline for • Monitor, Evaluate and Report on the status of the compliance to green and affordable power
green and green and

88
Phase I Phase II Phase III
Strategic Pillars and Strategic Initiative 2016/17 2017/8 2018/19 2019/20 2020/21

Q1 Q2 Q3 Q4 Q1 Q2 Q3 Q4 Q1 Q2 Q3 Q4 Q1 Q2 Q3 Q4 Q1 Q2 Q3 Q4

affordable affordable
power power

Ensure eHealth ready Medical Facility  Design a Setup a • Enforce the Medical Facilities Building Guideline
Health Medical
Building Infrastructure • Monitor, Evaluate and Report on the status of the compliance to
Facilities Facilities
Building Building the Medical Facilities Building Guideline
Guideline Committee
 Conduct
consultations
on the Health
Facilities
Building
Guideline

Utilize Appropriate Mature and Emerging Assess Develop • Sensitize and disseminate guidelines for appropriate Mature and Emerging Technologies
Technologies to enhance core eHealth Services Appropriaten guidelines for • Monitor, Evaluate and Report on the status of the compliance to the Medical Facilities Building
ess of appropriate Guideline
Mature and Mature and • Continuously Identify and Review Emerging Technologies in Healthcare to establish their applicability
Emerging Emerging in the Ugandan Healthcare Environment
Technologies Technologies
for support
of Health in
the Ugandan
Situation

Ethics

eHealth Ethical Standards and guidelines shall Review of the Develop eHealth Ethics Standards • Disseminate and sensitize all stakeholders about the eHealth Ethics Standards

89
Phase I Phase II Phase III
Strategic Pillars and Strategic Initiative 2016/17 2017/8 2018/19 2019/20 2020/21

Q1 Q2 Q3 Q4 Q1 Q2 Q3 Q4 Q1 Q2 Q3 Q4 Q1 Q2 Q3 Q4 Q1 Q2 Q3 Q4

be put in place in conformance to cultural existing and Guidelines as part of the and Guidelines
Standards for eHealth EA • Enforce the eHealth Ethics Standards and Guidelines
and religious values as well as international
Ethics • Monitor, Evaluate and Report on the status of the compliance to the eHealth
best practice. Ethics Standards and Guidelines

eHealth Code of Ethics shall be put in place, Review of the Develop • Disseminate and sensitize all stakeholders about the eHealth Code of Ethics
existing eHealth • Enforce the eHealth Code of Ethics
complied to and enforced.
Codes of Codes of • Monitor, Evaluate and Report on the status of the compliance to the eHealth Code of Ethics
Ethics Ethics

Information Assurance

Enhance Information Security to ensure Review the Develop, • Disseminate, sensitize and train all stakeholders about the eHealth Information Security Guideline
confidentiality, integrity and availability of NISF – Institutional • Enforce the eHealth Information Security Guideline
information when designing, procuring, establish if it eHealth • Monitor, Evaluate and Report on the status of the compliance to the eHealth Information Security
totally takes Information Guideline
implementing, maintaining and retiring eHealth
care of Security
Infrastructure and Solutions.
Health Guideline
Information
Security

Enhance Information Protection and Privacy to Review the Develop, • Disseminate, sensitize and train all stakeholders about the eHealth Information Privacy and
ensure electronic Health information is protected Data Institutional Protection Guideline
and privacy maintained Protection eHealth • Enforce the eHealth Information Privacy and Protection Guideline
and Privacy Information • Monitor, Evaluate and Report on the status of the compliance to the eHealth Information Privacy and
Law Privacy and

90
Phase I Phase II Phase III
Strategic Pillars and Strategic Initiative 2016/17 2017/8 2018/19 2019/20 2020/21

Q1 Q2 Q3 Q4 Q1 Q2 Q3 Q4 Q1 Q2 Q3 Q4 Q1 Q2 Q3 Q4 Q1 Q2 Q3 Q4

Protection Protection Guideline

Guideline

Ensure Business Continuity and Disaster Recovery Review the Develop a • Disseminate, sensitize and train all stakeholders about the eHealth Business Continuity and Disaster
when utilizing eHealth NISF – Business Recovery Plan
establish if it Continuity • Enforce the eHealth Business Continuity and Disaster Recovery Plan
totally takes and Disaster • Monitor, Evaluate and Report on the status of the compliance to the eHealth Business Continuity and
care of Recovery Disaster Recovery Plan
eHealth Plan for
Business eHealth
Continuity

Human Resources and Capacity Building

Evaluate the current readiness and enhance Develop a Design and conduct a • Develop an • Disseminate and sensitize all stakeholders about the eHealth
Sensitization detailed Workforce, eHealth Workforce Structure, Competencies Framework, Professional
capacity of the Health Worker to embrace
and basic Training, Skills and Workforce, Practice Standards and Curriculum Framework
and support the implementation of eHealth eHealth Competencies needs Training, • Enforce the eHealth Workforce Structure, Competencies Framework,
Training assessment for eHealth Skills and Professional Practice Standards and Curriculum Framework
Program and competencies • Monitor, Evaluate and Report on the status of the compliance to the
content framework eHealth Workforce Structure, Competencies Framework, Professional
• Develop Practice Standards and Curriculum Framework
Conduct professional
eHealth practice
Awareness standards
and Basic and
Training accreditation
amongst requirements
Health for eHealth

91
Phase I Phase II Phase III
Strategic Pillars and Strategic Initiative 2016/17 2017/8 2018/19 2019/20 2020/21

Q1 Q2 Q3 Q4 Q1 Q2 Q3 Q4 Q1 Q2 Q3 Q4 Q1 Q2 Q3 Q4 Q1 Q2 Q3 Q4

Workforce practice;
• Develop an
eHealth
Curriculum
Framework
Enable Health workers to have access to • Develop and • Implement health • Disseminate and sensitize all stakeholders about the eHealth e-
approve sector e-learning Learning Platform, qualifications for eHealth, Knowledge Repository
continuous professional development
methodology platform; and collaboration mechanism
through e-learning and digital resources for delivering • Establish a national • Enforce the eHealth e-Learning Platform, Knowledge Repository and
blended eHealth knowledge collaboration mechanism
learning repository; • Monitor, Evaluate and Report on the status of the compliance to the
• Develop a • Develop a eHealth e-Learning Platform for eHealth, Knowledge Repository and
program and collaboration and collaboration mechanism
electronic harmonization
content for mechanism
various health
professionals.
Mainstreaming Special Interest Groups

Support Access to, Acceptance and Utilization Coordinate Review the • Develop an • Disseminate and sensitize all stakeholders about the eHealth SIG
the setup existing legal Infrastructure, Architecture, Web Portal and Content Management Procedures
of eHealth by Special Interest Groups.
and and eHealth Services, • Enforce the eHealth SIG Architecture, Web Portal and Content Management
institutionaliz regulatory accessibility Procedures
ation of a framework – architecture and • Monitor, Evaluate and Report on the status of the compliance to the eHealth
Special to align with Standards for SIGs as SIG Architecture, Web Portal and Content Management Procedures
Interest SIGs part of the eHealth
Group Forum EA;
for eHealth • Develop Policies and
Guidelines for

92
Phase I Phase II Phase III
Strategic Pillars and Strategic Initiative 2016/17 2017/8 2018/19 2019/20 2020/21

Q1 Q2 Q3 Q4 Q1 Q2 Q3 Q4 Q1 Q2 Q3 Q4 Q1 Q2 Q3 Q4 Q1 Q2 Q3 Q4

eHealth for SIGs;

• Develop a National
Healthcare Web
Portal for the SIGs;
• Include specific
procedures for SIGs
as part of the
National Health
Digital Content
Strategy
Research, Innovation and Development

Enhance HealthCare Research and Innovation Develop Procure, Design, • Disseminate and sensitize all stakeholders about the National Health Care Web Portal
using Information and Communications Requirement Develop and Deploy • Enforce the eHealth National Health Care Web Portal
Technology. s for National a National Health • Monitor, Evaluate and Report on the status of the compliance to the National Health Care Web
Health Care Care Web Portal Portal
Web Portal

Establish an open multidisciplinary approach to • Identify and • Disseminate and sensitize all stakeholders about the eHealth Innovation Governance and Partnership Strategy
Research, Innovation Development, Translation develop a • Implement the eHealth Innovation Governance and Partnership Strategy
and Commercialisation of eHealth for clinicians, database of all • Monitor, Evaluate and Report on the status of the implementation of the eHealth Innovation Governance and
players in the Partnership
teachers, educators, and the general public.
eHealth
Innovation
Ecosystem with
their stake and
responsibilities
• Develop an
eHealth

93
Phase I Phase II Phase III
Strategic Pillars and Strategic Initiative 2016/17 2017/8 2018/19 2019/20 2020/21

Q1 Q2 Q3 Q4 Q1 Q2 Q3 Q4 Q1 Q2 Q3 Q4 Q1 Q2 Q3 Q4 Q1 Q2 Q3 Q4

Innovation
Governance and
Partnership
Strategy
Promote Research, Innovation Development, • Identify and Develop an open, • Disseminate and sensitize all stakeholders about the Strategy & Agenda and Platform &
prioritize the standards based Portal
Translation and Commercialisation of eHealth
eHealth research technology • Implement the eHealth Innovation Strategy and Agenda using the Platform and Portal
for innovators, clinicians, teachers, educators, platform and Portal
and innovations • Monitor, Evaluate and Report on the status of the implementation of the eHealth
and the general public. that enables
• Develop an Innovation Strategy and Agenda
eHealth innovators to
• Conduct Periodic Surveys of eHealth Innovations
Innovation create apps
• Conduct Periodic Workshops for eHealth Innovations
Strategy and
Agenda

eHealth Investment

Rationalize and Integrate eHealth into the Identify • Develop guidelines for • Mainstream eHealth in the national health budget and development frameworks (including
and developing, planning MoLG and Districts)
national health plans and budgets.
document and implementing • Provide appropriate funding and operational mechanisms for eHealth support
eHealth programs • Enforce and monitor that all procurements are based on the eHealth Enterprise
all the
• Set up structures and Architecture and Interoperability Framework;
funding
processes to ensure • Conduct Mid-Term Reviews of the eHealth Strategy and ensure that institutions plans are
sources for aligned to it.
proper investment and
eHealth
management of
allocated funds

Promote public-private-partnerships (PPP) Develop PPP • Identify and • Implement PPP eHealth Projects
guidelines prioritize • Monitor, Evaluate and Report on the progress of the eHealth PPP Projects.
and pooling of resources by all partners.
plausible

94
Phase I Phase II Phase III
Strategic Pillars and Strategic Initiative 2016/17 2017/8 2018/19 2019/20 2020/21

Q1 Q2 Q3 Q4 Q1 Q2 Q3 Q4 Q1 Q2 Q3 Q4 Q1 Q2 Q3 Q4 Q1 Q2 Q3 Q4

eHealth
Projects
• Procure using
PPP
Develop and implement eHealth investment • Lobby for Develop an • Implement eHealth Investment Plan
Resources for eHealth • Enforce the eHealth Business Process Outsourcing Guideline
plan
eHealth Business • Monitor, Evaluate and Report on the progress of the eHealth Investment Plan.
Investment form Process • Monitor, Evaluate and Report on the progress of compliance to the eHealth Business Process
RCIP, RCDF, Outsourcing Outsourcing Guideline
Health Insurance Guideline
Scheme, etc. to
create an
eHealth
Investment Fund
• Develop an
eHealth
investment plan

Reform the Development Partner Support • Identify and • Conduct an • Implement the eHealth Development Partner Coordination Strategy
make an analysis of all • Enforce the eHealth Development Partner Coordination Strategy
and Project Implementation Methods
inventory of all the support • Monitor, Evaluate and Report on the progress of the eHealth Development Partner
Development with a view of Coordination Strategy
Partners that rationalization;
provide (are • Develop a
planning to Coordination
provide) eHealth Strategy for all
support Development
• Develop and Partners
maintain an

95
Phase I Phase II Phase III
Strategic Pillars and Strategic Initiative 2016/17 2017/8 2018/19 2019/20 2020/21

Q1 Q2 Q3 Q4 Q1 Q2 Q3 Q4 Q1 Q2 Q3 Q4 Q1 Q2 Q3 Q4 Q1 Q2 Q3 Q4

updateable and
searchable
Portal/Database
of all the
proposed,
current and
completed
support by
Development
Partners;
Stakeholder Engagement, Collaborations, Advocacy and SMART Partnerships

Identify and engage all eHealth Stakeholders and Stakeholder • Continuous Stakeholder Engagement as per the Engagement& Partnership Plan including awareness
Partners at National, Regional and International Register & • Monitor, Evaluate and Report on the progress of the compliance to the Stakeholder Engagement as per the
level Engagement Engagement& Partnership Plan
Plan &
Conduct Two
Stakeholder
Engagements

Create awareness for eHealth Develop an • Disseminate and sensitize all stakeholders about the Incentive Strategy
Incentive • Implement the Incentive Strategy
Strategy • Monitor, Evaluate and Report on the progress of the compliance to the Incentive Strategy

Change, Adoption, Business Process Re-Engineering and Transitioning

Establish a comprehensive change and Review existing health facility • Develop an • • Disseminate and sensitize all

96
Phase I Phase II Phase III
Strategic Pillars and Strategic Initiative 2016/17 2017/8 2018/19 2019/20 2020/21

Q1 Q2 Q3 Q4 Q1 Q2 Q3 Q4 Q1 Q2 Q3 Q4 Q1 Q2 Q3 Q4 Q1 Q2 Q3 Q4

adoption strategy and provider accreditation eHealth Change stakeholders about the Change and
acts to enforce the use of Management Adoption Strategy
eHealth solutions and and Adoption • Implement the Change and Adoption
required standards Strategy Strategy
• Promote and empower local companies
with the capacity and capability to
develop and maintain large-scale
eHealth solutions
• Monitor, Evaluate and Report on the
progress of the compliance to the
Change and Adoption Strategy and
development of large-scale eHealth
Solutions

Establish a comprehensive Business Process Develop a • Disseminate and sensitize all stakeholders about the BPR
Business Process
Re-Engineering strategy Guideline
Re-Engineering
(BPR) Guideline
• Implement and Enforce the BPR Guideline
for eHealth • Monitor, Evaluate and Report on the progress of the compliance to the
BPR Guideline

Establish a comprehensive eHealth • Develop an • Disseminate and sensitize all stakeholders about the eHealth Procurement Guideline
eHealth • Implement and Enforce the eHealth Procurement Guideline
Transitioning strategy
Procurement • implement a training and knowledge acquisition Guideline
Guideline • Monitor, Evaluate and Report on the progress of the compliance to the eHealth Procurement
• Develop an Guideline, Knowledge Transition Guideline and EA
eHealth
Training and
Knowledge

97
Phase I Phase II Phase III
Strategic Pillars and Strategic Initiative 2016/17 2017/8 2018/19 2019/20 2020/21

Q1 Q2 Q3 Q4 Q1 Q2 Q3 Q4 Q1 Q2 Q3 Q4 Q1 Q2 Q3 Q4 Q1 Q2 Q3 Q4

Transition
Guideline
Legal and Regulatory Framework

Establish and operationalize a Legal and Establish a Review all • Revise /Enhance/Enact the requisite Laws and Regulations to support eHealth
legal and the existing • Implement and Enforce the eHealth Legal and Regulatory Framework
Regulatory Function for eHealth.
regulatory legal and • Monitor, Evaluate and Report on the progress of the compliance to the eHealth Legal and Regulatory
function in regulatory Framework
the MOH framework
related to
eHealth

Appendix B) Detailed Costing and Budget

eHealth Strategy
Budget.xlsx

Appendix C) Monitoring and Evaluation Matrix

98
eHealth Strategy M &
E Framework.xlsx

Appendix D) Governance and Management

Existing Governance Structures

4) Health Policy and Advisory Committee (HPAC)

Role

HPAC, as the SWAp coordination mechanism, advises government on priorities, policy implementation, and conducts regular joint reviews of health sector
performance.

Representation

 Ministry of Health
 Health Development Partners
 National, Regional Referral and District Health Care Delivery levels
 Health Service Commission
 Uganda AIDS Commission
 Private-not–for–Profit Medical Bureaus,
 Other Line Ministries (Public Service, Finance, Education, Water and Environment, Gender, Local Government)
 Civil Society Organisations
 Faith based organizations
 Private Sector
 People living with the diseases

99
Meetings

HPAC holds monthly meetings chaired by the Permanent Secretary of the Ministry of Health

Reporting

Reports to the Top Management Committee of the Ministry of Health.

Technical Working Groups

HPAC is supported by seven Technical Working groups (TWGs)

 Human Resources for Health

 Health Infrastructure
 Medicines Management and procurement
 Basic Package
 Sector Budget
 Supervision
 Monitoring and Evaluation
 Public Private Partnership in Health.
5) eHealth Technical Working Group

6) eHealth Core Team

7) Department of Health Information

8) Department of Quality Assurance

100
Quality Assurance department is mandated to ensure that health services provided are within acceptable standards for the entire sector, both public and
private health services.

Objectives:

 Ensure standards and guidelines are developed, disseminated and used effectively.
 Build and strengthen regular supervision system at all levels of care in order to promote provision of quality health services.
 Facilitate establishment of internal QA capacity at all levels including operations research on quality health services.
 Coordinate sector performance monitoring and evaluation.

9) Department of Planning

The planning department is mandated to; provide guidance to the sector, mobilize resources, develop policy frameworks, coordinate with other
stakeholders (local and international), review HSSIP & NHP and finally plan for and support capacity building and training of human resources for health.

Objectives:

 Ensuring that sector Budget Framework Paper (BFP) , Ministerial Policy Statement, annual work plans and performance reports are produced
 Extending support to sector institutions, LGs and NGOs in strategic and operational planning
 Ensuring that the annual health sector performance report is produced
 Resource Mobilization and budget monitoring
 Policy analysis and production of sector policy documents
 Health Management Information System (HMIS) coordination
 Human resource capacity building

eHealth Ideal Governance and Management Responsibility Matrix

The Governance and Responsibility ideal matrix is derived from the COBIT Governance Framework.

101
Proposed Governance and Management
1) National eHealth Steering Committee

102
The National eHealth Steering Committee (NeHSC) is an important component in ensuring the overall success of the National eHealth Strategy in Uganda.
The NeHSC will provide a system-level perspective to the Ministry and stakeholders on ICT and eHealth needs, priorities, and initiatives within the country.

The role of the NeHSC is to provide advice to the Ministry and stakeholders on the implementation of the National eHealth Strategy, within the broader
context of the National Development Plan II and HSDP III.

Roles and Responsibilities

(a) Provide leadership and strategic guidance in moving forward with eHealth as aligned with ongoing priority projects, the National eHealth Strategy,
and the HSDP III;
(b) Provide eHealth and eGov (electronic government) expertise and knowledge to the broader health system;
(c) Oversee the development, implementation and Monitoring & Evaluation and review of the National eHealth Policy, Strategy and Enterprise
Architecture;
(d) Champion eHealth initiatives at national, regional, and district levels;
(e) Set, prioritize and oversee eHealth-related policies and projects, including regulating and approving eHealth projects from the subcommittees and
partners, and assessing and identifying start-up and subsequent eHealth projects;
(f) Establish criteria for identification and selection of eHealth solutions;
(g) Review and approve a mechanism of health data collection, analysis and reporting;
(h) Identify opportunities for collaboration with key national and international eHealth partners;
(i) Pursue funding opportunities and leverage existing investments to support the National eHealth Strategy;
(j) Provide advice to the Ministry and stakeholders on the allocation or reallocation of resources as appropriate to achieve the National eHealth
Strategy;
(k) Review gaps (knowledge, human resources, funding, monitoring and evaluation, solutions, legal and regulatory, research, etc.) and approve
priorities for implementation;
(l) Oversee the work of the eHealth TWG.

Reporting and Accountability

The committee will report to the Minister through the chairperson (Director General) and secretary (head of eHealth Unit). The committee submits
quarterly reports of progress made to the Minister. SWG.

103
The committee members are accountable to the broader health system. The committee will have an accountability mechanism in the form of an evaluation
that the group will conduct annually to assess the following:

• Outcomes based on an agreed-upon work plan

• Adequacy of the established terms of reference.

Membership

The committee will be composed of no more than 9 voting members and will consist of one representative from MDAs, Hospitals, other government
institutions, associations, partners and experts. The members shall be representative in their own right (not delegable) and shall be at the level of Director
and Commissioner.

Additional members will be selected at the discretion of the NeHSC (not limited to MDAs). As noted previously, the committee is a system-level platform
comprising the various sectors of the health services continuum. Members are not participating on behalf of their own individual organizations.

The involvement of agencies and sectors beyond those that constitute the committee membership will occur through processes that are employed to
undertake the committee’s work.

Members shall be appointed for a two-year term, with a proportional rotation being established to ensure continuity of the group, and each member will
sign the terms of reference (outlining their roles and responsibilities clearly) for their commitment for this term.

No. Designation Institution Role

1 Director General of Health Services Ministry of Health Chairperson

2 Head of the Division of Health Ministry of Health Secretary

Information

3 Director/ Commissioner [ICT, Planning or Health Service Commission Member

Monitoring and Evaluation]

4 Director/ Commissioner [ICT, Planning or Office of the Prime Minister Member

104
Monitoring and Evaluation]

5 Director/ Commissioner [ICT, Planning or Ministry of ICT Member

Monitoring and Evaluation]

6 Director/ Commissioner [ICT, Planning or Ministry of Local Government Member

Monitoring and Evaluation]

7 Director/ Commissioner [ICT, Planning or Ministry of Gender Member

Monitoring and Evaluation]

8 Director/ Commissioner [ICT, Planning or National IT Authority Member

Monitoring and Evaluation]

9 Director/ Commissioner [ICT, Planning or Ministry of Ethics and Integrity Member

Monitoring and Evaluation]

10 Director/ Commissioner [ICT, Planning or Uganda Bureau of Statistics (UBOS) Member

Monitoring and Evaluation]Permanent
Secretary

11 Director – Health Monitoring Unit Office of the President Member

12 Director/ Commissioner [ICT, Planning or Allied Health Professionals Council (AHPC) Member
Monitoring and Evaluation]

13 Director/ Commissioner [ICT, Planning or Medical and Dental Practitioners Council Member
Monitoring and Evaluation]

14 Director/ Commissioner [ICT, Planning or Uganda Nurses and Midwives Council Member
Monitoring and Evaluation]

105
15 Director/ Commissioner [ICT, Planning or Pharmacy Council Member
Monitoring and Evaluation]

16 Director/ Commissioner [ICT, Planning, Uganda National Academy of Sciences (UNAS) Member
Research or Monitoring and Evaluation]

17 Specialist [ICT, Planning, Research or WHO Member

Monitoring and Evaluation]

18 Specialist [ICT, Planning, Research or UNICEF Member

Monitoring and Evaluation]

Table 1 - Proposed Membership to the eHealth Steering Committee

Meetings

The committee shall meet quarterly or at the call of the chairperson with three business days’ notice.

Quorum

A simple majority of members shall constitute a quorum. Meetings may be held in person or via electronic connections that allow two-way involvement of
all participants.

Decision Making

Decisions will be based on consensus. If consensus is not possible, the chairperson may call a vote. A simple majority vote of those members in attendance
will be needed to resolve or approve any issues requiring a vote.

Planning, reporting and information sharing

106
The NeHSC shall develop an action plan that will identify key priorities in a particular year. The NeHSC will report on progress and bottlenecks to the
Minister and HPACC meetings. At these meetings, progress on priorities will be reported, emerging concerns discussed, and recommendations suggested
for high level decisions/actions.

2) eHealth Technical Working Group

The National eHealth Technical Working Group (NeHTWG) has the role of providing technical advice to the Ministry and stakeholders on the
implementation of the National eHealth Strategy.

Roles and Responsibilities

(a) Provide technical support and guidance in line with the roles of eHealth by the bodies they represent;.
(b) Alignment of eHealth implementations to the different institutional strategies and plans to ensure harmonization and non-duplication;
(c) Monitor and report on implementations related eHealth;
(d) Facilitate sharing of information in relation to eHealth;
(e) Identify gaps (knowledge, human resources, funding, monitoring and evaluation, solutions, legal and regulatory, research, etc.) and propose
priorities;
(f) Strengthen multi-sectoral coordination and promote partnerships;
(g) Identify and propose priority eHealth projects;
(h) Identify and propose health data collection, analysis and report mechanisms;
(i) Oversee the work of the eHealth Entity

Reporting and Accountability

The NeHTWG will report to the NeHSC through the chairperson and secretary. The committee submits monthly reports of progress made to the NeHSC.

The committee members are accountable to the broader health system. The committee will have an accountability mechanism in the form of an evaluation
that the group will conduct annually to assess the following:

• Outcomes based on an agreed-upon work plan

• Adequacy of the established terms of reference.

107
Membership

The NeHTWG will be composed of no more than 9 voting members and will consist of one representative from MDAs, Hospitals, other government
institutions, associations, partners and experts. The members shall be representative in their own right (not delegable) and shall be at the level of Manager
or Asst. Commissioner.

Additional members will be selected at the discretion of the NeHTWG (not limited to MDAs). As noted previously, the committee is a system-level platform
comprising the various sectors of the health services continuum. Members are not participating on behalf of their own individual organizations.

The involvement of agencies and sectors beyond those that constitute the technical working group membership will occur through processes that are
employed to undertake the NeHTWG ‘s work.

Members shall be appointed for a two-year term, with a proportional rotation being established to ensure continuity of the group, and each member will
sign the terms of reference (outlining their roles and responsibilities clearly) for their commitment for this term.

No. Designation Institution Role

1 Head of the Division of Health Ministry of Health Chairperson

Information

2 Head of ICT Ministry of Health Secretary

3 Manager/ Principal Officer Health Service Commission Member

4 Manager/ Asst Commissioner [ICT, Office of the Prime Minister Member

Planning, Research or Monitoring and
Evaluation]

5 Manager/ Asst Commissioner [ICT, Ministry of ICT Member

Planning, Research or Monitoring and
Evaluation]

108
6 Manager/ Asst Commissioner [ICT, Ministry of Local Government Member
Planning, Research or Monitoring and
Evaluation]

7 Manager/ Asst Commissioner [ICT, Ministry of Gender Member

Planning, Research or Monitoring and
Evaluation]

8 Manager/ Asst Commissioner [ICT, National IT Authority Member

Planning, Research or Monitoring and
Evaluation]

9 Manager/ Asst Commissioner [ICT, Ministry of Ethics and Integrity Member

Planning, Research or Monitoring and
Evaluation]

10 Manager/ Asst Commissioner [ICT, Uganda Bureau of Statistics (UBOS) Member

Planning, Research or Monitoring and
Evaluation]

10 Manager/ Asst Commissioner [ICT, Office of the President Member

Planning, Research or Monitoring and
Evaluation]

11 Member [ICT, Planning, Research or Allied Health Professionals Council (AHPC) Member
Monitoring and Evaluation] Committee

12 Member [ICT, Planning, Research or Medical and Dental Practitioners Council Member
Monitoring and Evaluation] Committee

13 Member [ICT, Planning, Research or Uganda Nurses and Midwives Council Member

109
Monitoring and Evaluation] Committee

14 Member [ICT, Planning, Research or Pharmacy Council Member

Monitoring and Evaluation] Committee

15 Member [ICT, Planning, Research or Uganda National Academy of Sciences (UNAS) Member
Monitoring and Evaluation] Committee

16 Officer [ICT, Planning or M and WHO Member

Evaluation]

17 Officer [ICT, Planning or M and UNICEF Member

Evaluation]

Table 2 - Proposed Membership to the eHealth Technical Working Group

Meetings

The NeHTWG shall meet monthly or at the call of the chairperson with three business days’ notice.

Quorum

A simple majority of members shall constitute a quorum. Meetings may be held in person or via electronic connections that allow two-way involvement of
all participants.

Decision Making

Decisions will be based on consensus. If consensus is not possible, the chairperson may call a vote. A simple majority vote of those members in attendance
will be needed to resolve or approve any issues requiring a vote.

Planning, reporting and information sharing

110
The NeHTWG shall develop an action plan that will identify key priorities in a particular year. The NeHTWG will report on progress and bottlenecks to the
NeHSC meetings. At these meetings, progress on priorities will be reported, emerging concerns discussed, and recommendations suggested for high level
decisions/actions.

3) Department of Health Information

The Department of Health Information shall be the National eHealth Entity and coordinates and oversees the eHealth investment and the execution of the
implementation plan. The operating model should support discrete functions focused on strategy, investment management, implementation plan
execution, standards development, Data Analysis & Reporting, Research & Innovation and eHealth solutions compliance. The Unit should be overseen and
governed by the National eHealth Steering Committee. The Unit shall reside in the MoH using existing structures.

Roles and Responsibilities

The Unit should have the following set of responsibilities.

(a) Strategy – the review and monitoring of eHealth strategy outcomes and the development of strategic recommendations and priorities for
consideration by the National eHealth Steering Committee
(b) Investment – the development of eHealth investment submissions and business cases for consideration by the National eHealth Steering
Committee, and the budgeting and tracking of national eHealth investment funds
(c) Execution – the coordination of specific project initiatives across the foundations, adoption and change, and eHealth solutions work streams,
focusing on the delivery of on-time and on-budget projects; the reporting of project progress; and the management of project dependencies, risks,
and issues
(d) Standards Development – the definition, maintenance, and enhancement of national eHealth Enterprise Architecture and Interoperability
Framework and the implementation of a consistent process for undertaking this work
(e) Solutions Compliance – the testing of whether eHealth software products and solutions satisfy nationally agreed upon certification criteria and
standards
(f) Data Analysis and Reporting – the collection, integration, analysis and reporting on health information in line with the national, regional and
international requirements;
(g) Research and Innovation – provide technical support to eHealth Innovators in developing concepts, development, incubation, scaling and tasking
to the market eHealth Innovations

111
(h) Leadership –provide technical support to affiliated health institutions and agencies to ensure smooth implementation of eHealth strategies in their
respective areas. In addition, the Unit in collaboration with District Structures, will provide technical support eHealth implementation to local
government and health facilities.
(i) Regulatory Framework – The Unit shall also be responsible for the reviewing the implementation and enforcement of national eHealth regulatory
frameworks by the eHealth Regulatory Function. Regulatory frameworks should cover areas such as the establishment and implementation of
unique healthcare identifiers for individuals, care providers, and care provider organizations; the integrity, privacy, and security of personal
healthcare information; and the licensing conditions and compliance arrangements for electronic health record operators.

These functions should initially reside within this single eHealth entity to allow them to be established in a coordinated manner. Once the functions have
matured, consideration can be given to separating those functions that may best operate as distinct entities in the long term.

Structure

Operational support for the NeHSC and the NeHTWG will be provided by the Department of Health Information through four different offices:

Strategy Division: The Strategy Division will oversee the execution of the eHealth Strategy and monitor the progress against the Implementation roadmap.
A number of monitoring and reporting mechanisms will be established by the PMO section within the Strategy Office. Initially, the Strategy Office will focus
on the development and refinement of national eHealth and Data Management operational plans that will guide the program as a whole. A clear gating
process with decision making points will be put in place to ensure that only projects are executed that are aligned with the Vision and Strategy. Besides
monitoring progress, the Strategy Division will also perform data analysis and measure the realization of the intended benefits of each project across the
following five dimensions of eHealth Benefits:

 Better Health Outcomes;

 Increased Patient Safety;
 More Effective and Integrated System(s);
 Access to Better Quality Data;
 Development of a Knowledge Industry.

eHealth Technology and Services Division: The Technology Division will plan, implement and direct the activities as prescribed in the eHealth Enterprise
Architecture and Interoperability framework in support of the national eHealth Strategy.

112
In addition, the Technology and Services Division shall oversee the procurement, implementation and management of the National eHealth services and
solutions included in the National eHealth Enterprise Architecture and Interoperability Framework.

Enterprise Architecture and Standards Division: will support the establishment and maintenance of National eHealth Enterprise Architecture and
Interoperability Framework and Standards. This includes the development of the framework & standards, setting up processes to publish and maintain
these framework and standards, and helping to ensure proper compliance. Alignment with international standards is also a key function within the
Standards Office.

In addition the Office will also help establish supporting policies to cover the data management life cycle (creating, using, sharing, archiving and destroying
data) and the standards management lifecycle (standards selection, release management, deprecation).

The Adoption and Innovation Division: The Adoption and Innovation Division will support adoption and uptake of key outputs from the eHealth Programs
such as eHealth Enterprise Architecture and Interoperability Framework and Standards and national eHealth services and solutions. Communication
material, tools and methodologies will be developed and provided by the Adoption and Innovation Division to support this function. Benefits Evaluation and
Realization National E-Health Blueprint National E-Health Services and Solutions National eHealth Enterprise Architecture and Interoperability Framework
and Standards and Policies Support Adoption and Engage Stakeholders National E-Health and Data Management Strategy Draft for Stakeholder
Consultation .The Adoption and Innovation Office will also be responsible for all external communications for the eHealth program and will disseminate
new services and solutions across the country. In addition, it will promote activities in support of best practices in respect to change management and
training, to healthcare stakeholders. Another key function within the Adoption and Innovation Division is to establish clear minimum requirements that
must be met to safeguard the eco-system and to enhance the ability for organizations to safely and securely exchange information. A certification process
will be set up certify eHealth solutions and organizations against these requirements. Ultimately, organizations will only be allowed to participate if the
eHealth Solution and the organization using the solution are certified. Direction for the certification program will be drawn from eHealth Enterprise
Architecture and Interoperability Framework, policies and underlying technical requirements. Finally, this office will also be responsible to monitor and
promote the use of new, innovative technologies that support the goals of the eHealth Program. Using pilot implementations, innovation competitions and
other similar campaigns, new solutions will be tested and evaluated to determine their clinical value, extensibility and integration with the national eHealth
services.

113
Commissioner of
Health Information

Division of eHealth Division of eHealth

Division of Division of eHealth
Technology and Enterprise Architecture
eHealth Strategy Adoption and Innovation
Services and Standards

Change,
Program Planning and Data Enterprise Research and
Technology Services Standards Adoption and
Management M&Et Management Architecture Innovation
Compliance

Figure 6 Organizational Structure - Department of Health Information

National eHealth Society

The aims of the National eHealth Society are to promote the health of the population through eHealth and to disperse expert knowledge
within health care.

Roles and Responsibilities

(a) Arrange seminars

(b) Conduct lectures and presentations
(c) Arrange courses and symposia
(d) Develop a functioning electronic communication system between the members
(e) Conduct publishing activities
(f) Support research and innovation within the discipline

114
(g) Formulate statements on issues dealing with eHealth
(h) Maintain contact with other eHealth organisations.

Appendix E) Enterprise Architecture Ideal Situation

115
Appendix F) Priority Medical Institutions and Facilities – Connection to the NBI

116
No. Institution/Hospital
Institutions
1 Ministry of Health Headquarters

2 National Medical Stores

3 Health Service Commission (HSC)

4 National Drug Authority (NDA)

5 National Medical Stores (NMS)

6 Uganda Aids Commission

7 Uganda National Health Research Organisation (UNHRO)

8 Central
(ix) Public
CentralHealth
PublicLaboratory (CPHL) (CPHL)
Health Laboratory
9 Uganda Blood Transfusion Services (UBTS)
(x) Uganda Blood Transfusion Services (UBTS)
10 Uganda Virus Research Institute (UVRI)
(xi) Uganda Virus Research Institute (UVRI)
11 Natural Chemotherapeutics Research Laboratory

Referral Hospitals
12 Butabika National Referral Hospital

13 Mulago National Referral Hospital

Regional Hospitals
14 Arua Regional Referral Hospital

15 Fort Portal Regional Referral Hospital

117
16 Gulu Regional Referral Hospital

17 Hoima Regional Referral Hospital

18 Jinja Regional Referral Hospital

19 Kabale Regional Referral Hospital

20 Lira Regional Referral Hospital

21 Masaka Regional Referral Hospital

22 Mbale Regional Referral Hospital

23 Mbarara Regional Referral Hospital

24 Moroto Regional Referral Hospital

25 Mubende Regional Referral Hospital

26 Soroti Regional Referral Hospital

Other Hospitals
27 Entebbe General Hospital

28 Kawempe General Hospital - Kawempe, Kampala

29 Kiruddu General Hospital - Makindye Division, Kampala

30 Naguru General Hospital - Naguru, Kampala

Appendix G) eHealth Pilot Solutions

118
No. eHealth Solution Implementer

mHealth

Strategic information (SI) mobile app

Health Informatics Mapper (HiMAP)

teleHealth

Rural Extended Services and Care for Ultimate Emergency Relief (RESCUER)

TeleInViVo project

TeleMedicine

HealthNet

Appendix H) Key Stakeholders

The Key Stakeholders include but are not limited to the following;

a) Ministries, Departments, Agencies and Local Government

119
b) Health Regulatory Councils
c) Health professional associations
d) Hospital and health services associations
e) Academic, research institutes and think tanks
f) Health and disability insurance entities
g) Patient/client associations
h) Private care providers including private health organizations, NGOs and charitable affiliates.

Stakeholders from beyond the health sector will also play an important role in delivering the national eHealth Strategy. They may contribute resources
(expertise or services) and may have a strong interest in the outcome of the eHealth environment; for example in creating new business opportunities.
Examples of these types of stakeholders include:

a) ICT/Telecommunications ministries and service providers

b) Professional education agencies and academic institutions
c) Social welfare and community services
d) Consumer Protection organizations
e) Innovation, industry and science representatives
f) Ministry of Finance, Planning and Economic Development
g) International organizations and Development Partners.

120