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Background and objectives of

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openIMIS and its governance structure

The openIMIS initiative is focused on creating a sustainable community of practice of various types of users and contributors to the openIMIS software product. In order to achieve and sustain this vibrant openIMIS community, a governance structure to facilitate the various processes within the initiative has been designed. The governance structure aims to define roles and responsibilities to various actors within the community in order to create an efficient and transparent system of information flow and knowledge dissemination. The governance structure aims to bring various stakeholders - current and potential users, implementation and software development experts, specific subject experts onto common platforms to learn about openIMIS, to help develop openIMIS further, or to help spread information about openIMIS further. 

The aim of the global OpenIMIS openIMIS Initiative is to create a software centred community of practice, where different individuals and organisations at diverse levels are able to contribute to the development and implementation of the OpenIMIS openIMIS product. The main objectives of this organisational structure are to:

• Create transparent and efficient governance structures which assign clear roles and responsibilities to the different actors (user countries with their (health) insurers implementing

  OpenIMIS

  openIMIS, implementation partners, relevant health financing actors, software developers, centralized technical support organisation, technical advisory group, steering group, program coordination desk)

• Offer opportunities for individuals and organisations to learn about

  OpenIMIS

  openIMIS and become a service provider, e.g. as implementation partner or local support team

• Create an ecosystem which offers

  insurance

  social protection organisations a range of qualified implementation, training and software development/ integration partners to choose from

• Create a stable structure to ensure proper maintenance of

  existing MS IMIS

  the openIMIS product and to create a user support structure for

  existing MS IMIS user

  organisations using openIMIS

• Create a structure for the continuous improvement through addition of new modules and step-by-step transition to a modular open source solution

  Develop a business model where the organisations that use OpenIMIS contribute to a stable financing of the OpenIMIS core operations.

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Roles and responsibilities

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A first step towards an organisational structure is the clear definition of short description of the roles and responsibilities . For each of the suggested roles we distinguish between ongoing and case driven activities. This distinction serves to separate the more predictable ongoing activities from the case driven activities. The table below visualizes the main partners and their relations.

Figure 1:   Organisational scheme

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of the various groups in the governance structure are provided below.

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The following overview briefly describes the role of each partner:

• Steering Group

  (BMZ, SDC)

  defines overall strategic direction

  .Program Coordination Desk (GIZ)

  , and decides on the support to potential implementations through the The openIMIS Catalytic Implementation Fund

• Stakeholder Committee provides advice to support the overall outcomes of the openIMIS Initiative.

• Product Group forms the core of the openIMIS Initiative. It consists of:

  • Coordination Desk operationalizes defined strategic direction,

  administrates

  • administers budgets and oversees the

  IT and Product Team

  • activities of the involved working groups.

  • Developers Committee develops, maintains and supports at global level the core of openIMIS

  • Implementers Committee supports at global level implementations regarding implementation steps, training material, requirements of business processes for openIMIS.

• Technical Advisory Group

  (TAG) assesses the OpenIMIS Initiative evaluating

  provides technical advise to the openIMIS Initiative in its strategic developments,

  proposes

  proposals on system architecture and any new functional requirements. The

  members of the TAG will be nominated by the Steering Group.
• IT & Product Team develops, maintains and supports at global level the core of OpenIMIS product.
• Ministries of Health: National authorities, most often the Ministries of Health, ensure that investments into Health Insurance Systems are in line with the national health system architecture
• Implementation Consultant facilitates the outreach to the implementations in the countries and builds the link between global and local community.
• Local support / Dev. Team provides direct support to the insurers / users.
• Implementation Consultant and Local support team contribute towards the development based on project specific needs and contribute their developments back to the core solution.
• Insurers provide feedback on the features of OpenIMIS product and identify future requirements for the system.

  group consists of experts from various fields such as computer science, public health, social protection, data science etc.

• Knowledge Hubsprovide support to the community at various levels in order to promote the use of openIMIS, creation and dissemination of knowledge around openIMIS, as well as for capacity development.

Implementation Partners

In addition to the groups described in the governance structure above, Implementation Partners contribute in various capacities to multiple groups in the governance structure. These implementation partnersprovide support to scheme operators/user organizations for implementing openIMIS as well as playing a critical role in increasing the uptake of openIMIS by more schemes. The activities of the implementing partners in implementations together with their activities in the global community enable them to build very strong linkages between the global community and local users and communities. Some examples of the support provided by implementation partners are:

• Providing business process design solutions

• Supporting the implementation of openIMIS in a specific context

• Capacity building on openIMIS and business processes in a specific implementation context

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