November 2, 2022 (Addis Ababa, Ethiopia): The IGAD-Health Digitalization team in collaboration with GIZ/BMZ on October 31, 2022 embarked on a benchmarking mission to Addis Ababa in Ethiopia to learn the extent to which the Ethiopian Federal Ministry of Health has invested in the area of digital health.
The experience learning visit on November 2 and 3, 2022 to the Ministry of Health was for Ethiopia to showcase how they are championing digital health through the Health Care Blueprint as well as other existing frameworks and health architecture on how their health data is shared, has been improved overtime and how the data used for planning, timely interventions and decision making.
Through Member State experience sharing, IGAD is to start the process on implementation of the IGAD Data Sharing Policy and Protection Framework as was endorsed by the IGAD Health Ministerial Council in March 2022.
The team will also come up with recommendations for the scaling up of the Data Sharing Policy being adopted and domesticated in the IGAD Member States through data sharing standard operating procedures, data protection and data sharing protocols that will be provided by an efficient regional digital infrastructure for data management and control measures to verify disease cases hence better disease surveillance and monitoring in the region.
The team is addition is tracking progress, deliberating and recommending the next steps and key activities that will accelerate the implementation of the IGAD Digital Health Work Plan April 2022 to September 2023 in order to complement and strengthen the national digital health response in every IGAD Member State.
The team will also visit the Digital Health Training Center and the Ethiopian Science Museum in collaboration with the Ministry of Health of the Federal Government of Ethiopia.
