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

• Create an ecosystem which offers

  insurance 

  social protection

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  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.
• CIF - funding

• Role of the 'initiative' for capacity development?
  • capacity development tools availability
  • capacity development geared at general awareness building on openIMIS capabilities/functionality etc
  • 'on-board' business process (health financing, social protection etc) and ICT experts on openIMIS
• interoperability with other tools in the area  - policy side
• 'Grow' openIMIS to be beyond health insurance/financing
  • insurance organization → scheme operator
• legacy - modular : transition
• present openimis as a 'solution' to a problem rather than just a 'tool' or software
  • security
  • performance
  • data privacy/ethics
• financing of openimis implementations/country level
• evidence based communication about openIMIS
• growth of the community - local 

openIMIS initiative - facilitating the discussion, provides a forum, brings experts to talk about business processes and openIMIS functionality matching; NOT providing the business process solutions.

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• solution

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• show that openimis is the best tool on the market to solve the problems of the customer. evidence!
  • independence of evidence?
  • encourage 3rd party evaluations ..

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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

Image Removedof 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 defines overall strategic direction, 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

  group

  of the openIMIS Initiative.

  It consists of:

  • Coordination Desk operationalizes defined strategic direction,

    administrates

    administers budgets and oversees the 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

  provides technical advise to the openIMIS Initiative

  evaluating

  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.
• Implementation Consultants facilitates the outreach to the implementations in the countries and builds the link between global and local Community
• Regional hubs provide support to the community on regional level as well as facilitates training and capacity development
• Local support / Dev. Team provides direct support to the payers and providers
• Payers provide feedback on the features of openIMIS and identify future requirements for the system

3       Process flows

In order to clearly define the roles, to avoid overlaps, double work and gaps not covered by any organisation, the main processes of the planned organizational set-up need to be defined in detail, assigning activities to each partner. In this section, a few of the main processes are drafted.

In the column “Who” a main responsible is assigned, sometimes a second organisation is added in brackets to support the process.

3.1  Release Management (Software Maintenance)

One of the main challenges with release management is to coordinate the development of MS IMIS and open source application.

Table 1: Release management workflow

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Scheme operators,

Implementation Partners

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• Immediate solving of minor software issues regarding master version (mainly bugs when software does not comply with specifications)
• Compilation of feature requests into user requirements and add it to the backlog and preparation for discussion

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• Joint review of consolidated user requirements, including interfaces and joint timelines.
• Budget estimation
• Prioritisation of user requirements
• Preparation of feature roadmap for TAG review

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• Technical specification of the requirements
• Development of new functionality (Development (Specification, design, coding & unit testing, security testing, integration testing, user acceptance testing), Release, update documentation. Update Demo Version)

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• Release sign off and release management (source code repository and updating supporting documentation, etc.)
• Backwards compatibility needs to be implemented according to TAG guidance.

3.2  User support workflow

The main idea is that there is a centralized ticket system (starting at 3^rd tier), where users can submit their issues that cannot be solved at country level.

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Table 2: User support and issue management workflow

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In case the issue can be resolved without much effort, it can be closed.

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3.3  Country sales and implementation workflow

There are several possible constellations, how the sales process can unfold. In general, the proposal process should be based on open competition, spreading implementation know-how to a growing number of international, regional and national implementation partners. The IT & Product Team and GIZ should assume the role of supporting the proposal processes of implementation partners upon request.

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Table 3: Implementation workflow

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Initial contacts and general information

• Creation and maintenance of website, general presentation material, participation at events (together with Partners, e.g. to show case country best practise)
• Support with lead generation
• Mitigation in case of overlapping sales interest of different partners

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Insurance Agency(potential customer) –Program Coordination Desk

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• Insurer expresses interest in openIMIS. In case the contact is directly with GIZ, GIZ can explore the implementation options. GIZ and partners should agree on a standard procedure for this process.
• In case the contact is through another development partner, coordination with GIZ will be sought and options for sharing of roles in funding and supporting the customer will be explored with SG.

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• In case of a direct contact between an implementation partner and an Insurer, the implementation partner can lead the sales effort.
• Implementation partners should aim to include in their proposals to the customer a fee to refinance the global openIMIS Initiative.
• Presentations, customer contact
• Proposal (technical support through GIZ where required and possible)

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• 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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