Cure for congestion in Eswatini’s bid for digital health

Genesis partnered with the World Bank to develop a policy note for Eswatini’s Ministry of Health (MoH) that provides a roadmap for harnessing the power of digital health innovations (DHIs) to achieve universal health coverage by 2030. Crucially, this policy note will inform Eswatini’s upcoming five-year National Sector Strategic Plan.

DHIs are transforming the delivery of healthcare across Sub-Saharan Africa. One notable innovation is WhatsApp for telemedicine which can enable remote consultations, leading to greater access to healthcare in rural and underserved areas.

Eswatini’s MoH has set out a clear path for digital health transformation through its eHealth Strategy 2016-2020. It has established a Health Information System Coordination Committee (HISCC) to provide ongoing oversight, governance and strategic planning for digital health. Despite significant progress, challenges remain in deploying and maximising the benefits of DHIs. Assistance from Genesis was geared towards improving this situation.

Genesis used a mixed-methods approach to ensure the practical applicability of the policy note. This consisted of three phases:

• Research and consultation: Genesis evaluated the status of key health outcomes and identified health system bottlenecks through desktop research and consultations with members of the MoH. Based on this analysis, the team developed novel DHI use-cases that can solve these bottlenecks and improve health outcomes.
• Digital opportunity and readiness assessment: Our team conducted a readiness assessment, framed by the World Health Organisation/International Telecommunication Union’s strategic guidelines for digital health interventions. This enabled us to assess the preparedness for digital health advancement in Eswatini and the feasibility of implementing and scaling novel DHI use-cases.
• Synthesis and finalisation: Genesis organised workshops with technical and domain experts to develop feasible interventions that can improve the enabling environment for these novel DHI use-cases, such as restructuring and capacitating the HISCC. This also included the steps necessary to implement these interventions. This phase concluded with a policy dialogue to validate all insights and solutions.

The policy note provides Eswatini's MoH with a clear and actionable roadmap to implement scalable, impactful and feasible DHIs. It also outlines mechanisms to enhance the MoH’s coordination and decision-making capabilities by strengthening the HISCC to enable it to identify, select, deploy and manage future DHIs.