Background and objectives of openIMIS and its governance structure
The aim of the global openIMIS Initiative is to create a software centred community, 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 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 and to create a user support structure for existing MS IMIS user organisations
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.
Roles and responsibilities of parties
A first step towards an organisational structure is the clear definition of 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
The following overview briefly describes the role of each partner:
Steering Group defines overall strategic direction.
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 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 the openIMIS Initiative evaluating strategic developments, proposes on system architecture and 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