2.            Requirements for the IT Solution

2.1       Description of the Existing IT Solution

      I.        Software Stack

After a migration of the openIMIS codebase from proprietary technologies to a full open source technology stack, the following frameworks are now in use and recommended as reference technologies for running an openIMIS instance[BJEE1] [WUG2] :

• Web-Frontend: React JS

• Backend: Python (Django)

• Data Access: GraphQL

• Database: PostgreSQL (recommended), but MS SQL is still supported

• Packaging: Docker

• Server: Linux (recommended), but any server OS supporting docker will work

    II.        Previous Results of the openIMIS Initiative

The openIMIS Initiative together with other development partners has previously supported the maintenance and support of the openIMIS product. The results include among others:

• A harmonised version (main) was created from the country specific adaptations of the openIMIS software package and migrated to a modular architecture using open source technologies and implementing international interoperability standards. It is available in a public code repository and updated regularly with recent code contributions. (https://github.com/openimis )

• A regular release cycle according to a defined change management process was established and successfully applied since 2019.

• A technical roadmap was developed as a living and constantly updated technical document based on a series of workshops with different stakeholders and ongoing technical strategy discussions. (Product Roadmap )

• Community platforms were set up as resource repositories and communication channels for the openIMIS community. A regularly maintained helpdesk was set up and established.

• A sandbox environment to demonstrate openIMIS features and its interoperability options was set up for testing and show-casing. It will be enhanced to host demo installations of the solutions.

• In a series of migration projects, functionality of the CORE-MIS software package by the World Bank was migrated to openIMIS and provide a : (Project: 2022.T3 CORE-MIS Merger    )

2.2       Description of the Application/Use of the IT Solution

openIMIS is an interoperable, versatile open source software which supports the administration of health financing and social protection schemes. It is designed to manage the complex, high-volume data flows which are required to operate such schemes by seamlessly integrating beneficiary, provider and payer data. Over 17.7 million people in more than 12 countries benefit from social protection programmes (health insurance, employment injury insurance, cash transfer and voucher schemes) managed using openIMIS.

2.3       General Conditions at the Partner End

      I.        General Conduct

The staff members seconded by the contractor must cooperate closely with the GIZ project officer who is responsible to BMZ for the German and Swiss contributions to the openIMIS Initiative and the programme officer appointed for this contract. All activities of the contractor have to be done in line with and on the basis of ongoing activities of the openIMIS Initiative to achieve all programme outputs (see chapter 1.IV above).

Ongoing activities that must be taken into account and built upon during this assignment are:

1. Activities of the openIMIS Initiative geared towards community building and regional support structures. This activity is supplemented by additional contracts for regional openIMIS hubs.

1. Activities of the openIMIS Initiative geared towards implementation support for new scheme operators.

2. Software development as well as release and sandbox management by other contractors and implementation partners.

3. Active involvement of the openIMIS Initiative in the interoperability networks OpenHIE, IHE, GovStack and the Digital Convergence Initiative in Social Protection (DCI).

4. Merger with the CORE-MIS software from the WorldBank.

Developments that may lead to difficulties in a later project phase should be identified as quickly as possible. Furthermore, in view of the focus on the results described above, results monitoring is crucially important. An efficient monitoring and evaluation system must therefore be proposed and set up that allows all entities of the openIMIS governance structure, the contractor and the GIZ Global Programme GASP to monitor project progress. Progress reports are submitted quarterly based on a format which will be agreed upon during the inception. Regular feedback sessions may be convened by the GIZ Global Programme GASP depending on the progress of the assigned tasks. The contractor is expected to respond to changes flexibly, especially if the project is in danger of straying from outputs mentioned in Chapter 1.

    II.        Integration into the Existing openIMIS Structures

The openIMIS initiative builds upon existing software for health insurance management that is being used by insurance organisations in several countries already. Although the migration of openIMIS to the new modular architecture is completed and the legacy version will not be included in future releases any more, continuous support for smooth operations of those legacy implementations is still important to this commission. Besides simply operating openIMIS, these local organisations also support the openIMIS Initiative with own code developments, which need to be integrated into the core system on a regular basis.

Within the openIMIS governance structure regular exchange meetings are foreseen for different stakeholders, some of which are also relevant for the contractor. In the context of this commission, the contractoris currently especially expected to take part in the weekly calls of the Developers Committee and the monthly review calls but might be invited for additional events – online or in person.

   III.        Co-operation with Partners of the openIMIS Initiative

In order to build a sustainable community of practice, the openIMIS Initiative is co-operating with various international partners and sub-contracting other consultants. The contractor is expected to work together with these partners in a co-operative and friendly way, respecting and supporting the work of others and disclosing relevant information where necessary. Apart from the consultants that work on the ongoing activities mentioned in chapter 2.I and those who work on short term consultancies, the openIMIS initiative currently co-operates closely with other players such as the OpenHIE community, the GovStack Initiative, the Digital Convergence Initiative and other Digital Public Good Initiatives from related sectors. Finally, it can be expected that free implementers and developers who are interested in the project want to associate and contribute to the project. The openIMIS Initiative has a special interest to nourish this kind of relations through a welcoming community culture of trust.

In the special context of this tender, the CORE-MIS team from the Worldbank is specifically appointed to work on the merger of CORE-MIS with openIMIS and a new CORE-MIS solution bundle based on the results.

2.4       Functional Requirements

      I.        Solution Packages

The contractor identifies the needed functionality, the suitable look & feel for the user interfaces and the needed user documentation for specific use cases of openIMIS. On this basis the contractor selects software and non-software products (e.g. documentation) from official openIMIS releases that will to be bundled into solution packages. These will be packaged into installation templates, that will be availed in solution specific github repositories which contain all needed software artifacts (e.g. configuration files). A potential implementation partner needs to be able to install a solution package by simply running a docker script as they would do for a full openIMIS install.

Solution specific user documentation can be bundled from a selection of existing documentation pages in the openIMIS wiki, which are to be updated and extended as needed.

    II.        Configuration Options

The contractor is requested to identify and extend existing configuration options of openIMIS that allow to configure the needed adaptations without forking the released openIMIS code base (strong preference of configuration vs. customisation). Examples that were already identified in the CORE-MIS migration project are configurable logos, colours, menu structures, workflows and data structures. These will then serve as templates for Implementation Partners to further adapt a solution to their needs.

If the existing configuration options are not sufficient, the contractor is expected to suggest and implement improvements in the openIMIS base package in close collaboration with the developers’ committee.

   III.        Additional Functionality

This tender is not looking at extending the existing openIMIS modules. However, in some cases there might be the need to add functionality if the resulting solution would not be able to perform at least essential duties of the respective use-case.

  IV.        Quality Assurance

The contractor is assuming a proxy role for Implementation Partners and is expected to base their work on the existing artifacts from the official openIMIS releases: gaps or defects of these need to be communicated to the developers’ committee and to a small extend fixed in close collaboration with the maintenance team.

    V.        Requested Solutions

The contractor is requested to build the solutions in an agile manner (e.g. one solution per sprint to the extent of the available budget). The following solutions were identified to be of interest, sorted by priority. Most of these are already in use in productive environments:

• CORE-MIS (Unconditional Cash Transfer)

• Social Health Insurance with claiming

• Voucher programme

• Social Health Insurance with capitation

• Central Registers

  • Universal/Dynamic/Social beneficiary register

  • Central patient register

  • Farmers registry

  • Product catalogue

2.5       Non-Functional Requirements

The following non-functional requirements must be considered by the contractor when implementing the service.

2.5.1 Interfaces

openIMIS provides external access to data and functionalities through standard APIs. The currently used standard is based on the specifications of the HL7 FHIR version 4. The APIs are documented in the openIMIS implementation guide: https://fhir.openimis.org/

Additional standards will be added according to demand. Currently the emerging standards of the Digital Convergence Initiative for Social Protection are under revision.

2.5.2    System Requirements/Technical Framework

The openIMIS Initiative is committed to operate according to international development principles that are endorsed by the supporting GDC and SDC and correspond to the guiding principles of GIZ. The contractor is especially expected to comply to

• the Principles for Digital Development (https://digitalprinciples.org/ )

• ·the Digital Investment Principles (https://digitalinvestmentprinciples.org/ )

As one direct consequence, the development of openIMIS is oriented at standards set by

• the Business Process Framework for National Health Insurance Information Systems elaborated through the Joint Learning Network (JLN)

• the World Bank Sourcebook on the Foundations of Social Protection Delivery Systems

• the security recommendations of the Open Web Application Security Project (OWASP)

• the digital health architecture of the Open Health Information Exchange (OpenHIE) community of practice.

• the interoperability specification for Fast Health Interoperability Resources (FHIR) by the Health Level Seven International Organisation (HL7) 

• the emerging standards GovStack and Digital Convergence Initiative for Social Protection

The contractor is expected to align with the ambitions of the openIMIS Initiative to further harmonise openIMIS with those standards in terms of terminology, workflows and interoperability.

2.6       Use of Open Source Software (OSS)

Being an Open Source project itself, the openIMIS initiative strongly supports the use of Open Source Software in the given context. The contractor must be willing to use Open Source Software where possible and avail all software and non-software products in a timely manner to the openIMIS Initiative in source versions that can be further maintained with Open Source tools without loss of product quality.

2.7       Hosting

The openIMIS Initiative is hosting all community platforms and communications channels with an eye on sustainability. Code-repositories, documentation servers etc run on free web-platforms that are common in open source development to allow continuity beyond funded project phases. Only the demo servers of the openIMIS sandbox environment are hosted on commercial servers. The hosting of productive implementations of openIMIS is in the sole responsibility of the scheme operators that apply openIMIS and their implementation partners.

The existing repositories, communication channels and community platforms that were established by the openIMIS Initiative shall be used. They were set up according to best practices in the community and are running at production scale. Specifically, these are

• openIMIS code repositories (https://github.com/openimis )

• openIMIS issue tracker (https://openimis.atlassian.net)

• openIMIS documentation server (https://openimis.readthedocs.io )

• openIMIS wiki (openIMIS )

• openIMIS translation platform (https://lokalize.com )

• openIMIS chat channel (https://discord.gg/khDgTDWUZV )

The contractor does not provide hosting services.

2.8       Further Specifications/General Conditions

3.            Responsibilities of the contractor

The contractor must deliver the following services and work packages (along with the corresponding milestones). The work packages have no chronological order and can also be implemented on an integrated basis, depending on the development methodology:

3.1       Work package 1: Needs and Gap Analysis

1. Analyse the needed solutions and the existing openIMIS architecture to allow an estimation of the essentially needed investments for each solution package based on existing configuration options.

2. Analyse the existing data models and business processes to identify further opportunities for enhancing the configurability and customisability of openIMIS in terms of user-defined attributes and business processes.

3. In a collaborative process with all involved partners (compare chapter 3.II.b), set up an agile strategy for building the solution packages based on the analysis results from the previous points and update the technical roadmap accordingly.

3.2       Work package 2: Build the Solution Packages (Sprints per Package)

1. Create the needed github repository.

2. Configure the needed options for a solution and provide all needed artifacts into the repository.

3. In close co-operation with the software maintenance project, define change requests for code changes in openIMIS that are necessary to allow for additional configuration options.

4. In close co-ordination with the product group, apply small scale code changes to the openIMIS code base to supplement essential functionality of new solutions.

5. Support the maintenance team in the smooth integration of the changed software items with regard to the regular openIMIS releases.

6. Verify already delivered solution packages after every openIMIS release and update them if needed.

3.3       Work package 3: Quality Assurance and Capacity Building

1. Support the openIMIS Product Group in the definition of new requirements and feature requests resulting from gaps in the existing openIMIS software and non-software products.

2. In close co-operation with the openIMIS Developers Committee, identify issues that remain to be solved after the delivery of a solution, especially prioritising security aspects.

3. In close co-operation with the Product Group, align the roadmaps for new feature requests and module migrations in an agile approach.

4. Collect, correct and extend basic training materials and documentations from the existing openIMIS syllabus and bundle them into solution specific manuals.

5. Conduct online and/or offline training sessions of potential Implementers and users of the solution packages.

6. Support the installation of the solution packages into the openIMIS sandbox.

7. Participate at international events and support in the organization / preparation of side-events & workshops during such events.