Submitted Abstracts
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Proposal 2: Panel Session
| Abstract Title | openIMIS: the open source tool for the digitalisation of health financing |
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| Session Theme | Sustainable Financing for Digital Health: Sustainable financing for digital health and the roles of digital health in support of health financing, including UHC |
| Description of Session | More and more countries in the world seek to achieve Universal Health Coverage (UHC) and Universal Social Protection (USP) for their populations. Interactions between stakeholders in health and social protection systems are very complex and generate a lot of data. That is why Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) can provide essential support and help to navigate through a system for policymakers and users. Unfortunately, ICT solutions can be expensive and difficult to maintain. Furthermore, many countries do not have sufficient technical and financial capacity to cope with complex ICT structures. Many health system-related ICT projects have been focusing on data extraction, monitoring and evaluation in recent years. What has been lacking is a tool addressing health financing interactions among the key stakeholders in a health care system. As an open-source product, openIMIS is a comprehensive and affordable tool, linking beneficiary, provider and payer data. openIMIS offers a simple and user-friendly way to manage core processes from enrolling beneficiary management to transmitting and verifying claims. The openIMIS Initiative promotes global exchange around the openIMIS software and links global and local communities to benefit from each other. The Initiative was founded and is collaboratively financed by the Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation (SDC) and the German Federal Ministry of Economic Cooperation and Development (BMZ). Currently, the Initiative is coordinated by GIZ. The presentation will ideally be embedded in a panel discussion on UHC and the underlying principles of a health financing system. If classic health financing functions (resource generation, resource pooling, service purchasing) are addressed, the panel could discuss how those functions can be supported through digital tools to create more efficiency and strategic purchasing of health care services. |
| Learning Objectives | The learning objective of this presentation is to provide the audience with information on: 1. The role of digital tools for health financing and UHC 2. openIMIS as open-source software: functionalities and workflows 3. openIMIS: learnings from the country implementation (an example will probably be submitted by Swiss TPH on the national scale-up of openIMIS in Tanzania) 4. openIMIS Initiative: global community, resources, and governance structure. |
| Session Design | |
| Why is your abstract important in the digital health landscape? | Sustainable health financing is the base and a major building block for UHC. So far, openIMIS is the first and only open-source tool worldwide supporting the financial flows between beneficiaries/patients, providers, and payers. Moreover, from a health (financing) system perspective, the purchasing of services and provider payment set up are the crucial elements for efficient resource allocation and health care system management. openIMIS provides the needed functionalities to manage these processes efficiently. The demand for schemes in various countries is growing and it is important to avoid inefficiencies due to either re-creating local solutions or spending resources on expensive software solutions (rather than spending it on health). The objective of this presentation is to raise awareness and knowledge about the existence of openIMIS, its potential, and learnings from current implementations. |
| Country/Region the abstract applies to | Global good = global level; Implementations in Nepal, Tanzania, Cameroon, Chad, DRC |
| (If applicable) Is the digital health solution you describe listed in the WHO Digital Health Atlas (https://digitalhealthatlas.org)? | Yes: https://digitalhealthatlas.org/en/-/projects/775/published |
| Presenters | Alicia Spengler, Saurav Bhattarai, Viktoria Rabovskaja |
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| Abstract Title | openIMIS: The open source software for managing payer-provider mechanisms! |
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| Session Theme | Sustainable Financing for Digital Health: Sustainable financing for digital health and the roles of digital health in support of health financing, including UHC |
| Description of Session | openIMIS is an open-source software tool for the digitalisation and efficient management of health financing workflows. Currently being used to manage a variety of health protection schemes in Nepal, Tanzania, Cameroon, Chad, and DRC, openIMIS offers seamless connections between beneficiaries, health service providers, and payers. The software is designed for a variety of business processes ranging from enrolling beneficiaries at the community level to generating electronic claims at health facilities to the automated and human-led adjudication of claims at the offices of the payer institution. This appy hour session will be designed to showcase to the user how easy it is to use openIMIS for the various processes in a health protection scheme. For the developer audience, there will be material available to inform them about the openIMIS technical roadmap and to encourage them to join the community of practice. Through a local instance of openIMIS, we will demonstrate how Android apps can be used to enroll beneficiaries and provide ID cards in the communities. Additionally, the workflows around claim entry and processing will also be demonstrated through a live demonstration of the openIMIS system. |
| Learning Objectives | The main learning objective of this session is to provide the audience with information on how the software functions - from both a technical viewpoint as well as a user of the system. With a live demonstration running, the audience will be able to see the concepts openIMIS utilizes to enroll beneficiaries, generate, and adjudicate claims. |
| Why is your abstract important in the digital health landscape? | The business processes around provider-payer health financing mechanisms are complex, and for many scheme-operators, a barrier to realizing an efficient system. Digital technologies offer a large potential in reducing these complexities to the user. openIMIS is the first and only open-source tool to offer this solution. The digital health landscape needs to be aware of the existence of such solutions and help build a community of practice together, further. The proposed appy hour session provides this opportunity for potential users, developers, and system owners to understand the tool and provide valuable feedback, requests, insights for its further development. |
| Country/Region the abstract applies to | Nepal, Tanzania, Cameroon, Chad, DRC |
| (If applicable) Is the digital health solution you describe listed in the WHO Digital Health Atlas (https://digitalhealthatlas.org)? | Yes. |
| Presenters | Saurav Bhattarai |
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