UNICEF Lesotho seeks to hire a consultant who under the overall supervision of the UNICEF Health Officer and MOH Team (Community Based Health Services (CHBS) manager, IT manager and Chief Statistician) will provide their professional services to facilitate backstopping of MOH ICT to ensure implementation and use of CHWML and CHIS and monitor the platform’s functionality and performance, provide the necessary technical maintenance, system upgrade, and for the development of the Ministry of health’s Rapidpro focusing on maternal and child health services, community health including EBS.
UNICEF works in some of the world’s toughest places, to reach the world’s most disadvantaged children. To save their lives. To defend their rights. To help them fulfill their potential.
Across 190 countries and territories, we work for every child, everywhere, every day, to build a better world for everyone.
And we never give up.
For every child,Health
Health is a public health component whose primary objective is to promote family and community-level health and disease prevention, ensuring universal access to primary health care as close to the population as possible. In Lesotho, community health care workers (CHW) remain a critical link between community and health facilities by fostering trust, improving children services for preventable diseases to reduce morbidity and mortality. CHW have also played a critical role in the COVID-19 vaccination rollout and routine immunization, through community mobilization, outreach campaigns, patient follow-up and community surveillance of adverse event following immunization (AEFI), as well as collecting data on the vaccination rollout at community level.
UNICEF supported Ministry of health in strengthening community health program through establishment of Community Health worker Master List (CHWML) registry system that is hosted in DHIS2. CHWML is a repository for storing and managing data on employment or engagement history for VHW resources which will eventually be extended to entire community cadres. It is part of a broader Human Resource Information System for securely managing data about HR for an organization. As this system is a component of the Human Resource Information System for the ministry, it houses extremely sensitive employment and finance data that should only be managed and accessed by HR and professionals authorized to access the system. This solution is built to be interoperable with other health systems including as HRIS, HMIS, CHIS, LMIS etc. The CHWML will show the data elements required to uniquely identify, count, locate, and contact all VHWs in Lesotho. The VHW master list will be very critical for strategic planning, training, deployment, payment, supply, supervision, and monitoring VHWs. It will pave the way to development of broader human resources for health (HRH) system. Not only is the CHWML a useful digitalized HR management tool, but it also informs about gaps in community health, and available HR for health awareness and vaccination campaigns, community mobilization, etc. This CHWML will be linked to iHRIS and DHIS2 platforms.
The Ministry of Health has also developed an electronic Community Health Information System (CHIS), for monitoring and evaluation system for the village health workers’ programme. CHIS assists the VHW collect, store, and manage service delivery data about the clients they serve in the community. In effect this solution is a point of care system and facilitates the operational day to day work of the Village Health Worker. Thus, this system contains highly sensitive patient/client level information on services provided and requires appropriate security standards for protecting personal patient information at that level. The CHIS is interoperable with National DHIS2 and is used to routinely monitor health outcomes, needs and gaps at the community level. The goal is to extend this M&E framework to broader community health services delivered by civil society organizations.
Furthermore, UNICEF is supporting MOH to improve the quality of maternal and newborn services through establishment learning hub which have a component of patient satisfaction with in it. This means MOH must improve ton for general and personalized community feedback mechanisms. Ministry of health again is enhancing management of public health threats and has adopted the EBS framework to be used by community, health facility, district, and national levels. The community-level EBS is designed for Community Health Workers (CHWs) who play an essential role as the primary sensors of health signals/events. This requires a rapidpro which is designed to enable sending of personalized messages over SMS, voice, social media, and Internet-based channels with responses analyzed in real-time. The core rapidpro service is a highly capable platform that allows for the creation of sophisticated interactions using an intuitive user interface. RapidPro allows project managers to immediately set-up and customize the communication platform according to the specific needs and requirements of their program. With RapidPro, project managers can build their own SMS-based workflows via an easy-to-use web-based interface. With this same functionality, users can create polls and campaigns on an administrative dashboard and prepare customizable front-end websites for aggregated data reports and mapping of poll results without in-depth programming knowledge. It is against this background that UNICEF is seeking consultancy services to assist the Ministry of Health of health ICT to support the implementation and use of these systems, monitor the platform’s functionality and performance, and provide the necessary technical maintenance, system upgrade, and development of the Ministry of health rapidpro focusing on community health services including EBS and maternal and child health services.
How can you make a difference?
PURPOSE OF THE ASSIGNMENT
Under the overall supervision of the UNICEF Health Officer and MOH Team (Community Based Health Services (CHBS) manager, IT manager and Chief Statistician) the consultant will:
- Develop a roadmap in consultation with UNICEF and MOH on the trainings for MOH ICT staff, maintenance schedule and trainings of the Program managers on the data use.
- Consider customizing and deploying RapidPro platform for MOH for the community health services including EBS. Supporting MOH hosting of the RapidPro application while considering the global context and needs of other country offices that are using RapidPro.
- Take stock after pilot implementation of the two systems in 3 districts (Leribe, Maseru and Mokhotlong) including: changes in CHIS reporting rates; data availability, timeliness, and use; and make recommendations for expansion and system upgrades to routine immunization and other community health care services across the country.
SCOPE OF WORK
The purpose of the assignment is to seek quality proposal from potential consultant to provide their professional services for facilitating backstopping of MOH ICT to ensure implementation and use of CHWML and CHIS and monitor the platform’s functionality and performance, and provide the necessary technical maintenance, system upgrade, and development of the Ministry of health Rapidpro focusing on maternal and child health services, community health including EBS.
Scope of Work and Implementation Logic 1. Technical Backstopping – 1 week/month – System Updates & Adhoc Customizations
Technical Backstopping for MOH ICT team for maintenance and support and Adhoc System Customizations & Updates
2.
System Enhancements: Integration with RapidPro, OpenSRP Datawarehouse & Analytics Database
- RapidPro and OpenSRP Analytics Dashboard installation, setup and configuration
- BKM-RapidPro FHIR Integration module setup and development
- Development of FHIR ETL pipeline – FHIR Server to Datawarehouse
- Apache Superset installation and setup
- Building and testing BKM Community Health Dashboards on Apache Superset
3.
RapidPro/DHIS2 Community Feedback Dashboards
- Customize DHIS2 metadata for RapidPro community feedback reporting.
- Configuration of automated aggregate reporting of RapidPro community feedback indicators
- Develop & Publish RapidPro community feedback dashboards
4.
Installation of RapidPro & Analytics Dashboard on BKM Staging and Live environment
- Installation of RapidPro & Analytics Dashboard on BKM Live and Staging Servers
- Configuration & Testing of live and staging environments
5.
BKM User Manual Updates (RapidPro and Analytics Dashboard)
- Update BKM user manuals with RapidPro & Analytics Dashboard sections
6.
MOH ICT Capacity Building & Skills Transfer Workshop (RapidPro & Analytics Dashboard)
- RapidPro & Analytics Dashboard MOH ICT training
WORK ASSIGNMENT OVERVIEW
Tasks
Deliverable/output
Timeline/deadline
Payment structure
1.1. Technical Backstopping – Maintenance and Support
1.2 Adhoc System Customizations & Updates
Technical Backstopping – 1 week/month – System Updates & Adhoc Customizations
60 Days
30%
2.1. RapidPro and OpenSRP Analytics Dashboard installation, setup and configuration
2.2. BKM-RapidPro FHIR Integration module setup and development
2.3. Development of FHIR ETL pipeline – FHIR Server to Datawarehouse
2.4. Apache Superset installation and setup
2.5 Building and testing BKM Community Health Dashboards on Apache Superset
System Enhancements: Integration with RapidPro, OpenSRP Datawarehouse & Analytics Database
45 Days
20%
3.1. Customize DHIS2 metadata for RapidPro community feedback reporting
3.2. Configuration of automated aggregate reporting of RapidPro community feedback indicators
3.3 Develop & Publish RapidPro community feedback dashboards
RapidPro/DHIS2 Community Feedback Dashboards
30 Days
20%
4.1. Installation of RapidPro & Analytics Dashboard on BKM Live and Staging Servers
4.2. Configuration & Testing of live and staging environments
Installation of RapidPro & Analytics Dashboard on BKM Staging and Live environment
10 Days
10 %
5.1 Update BKM user manuals with RapidPro & Analytics Dashboard sections
BKM User Manual Updates (RapidPro and Analytics Dashboard)
20 Days
10 %
6.1 RapidPro & Analytics Dashboard MOH ICT training
MOH ICT Capacity Building & Skills Transfer Workshop (RapidPro & Analytics Dashboard
20 Days
10 %
Total
185 Days
To qualify as an advocate for every child you will have…
Minimum qualifications required:
- Bachelors degree in Engineering, Information Technology or a related field.
Work experience:
- More than 5 Years’ experience in IT and opensource systems development and implementation (Global Goods)
- More than 5 Years’ Experience in Health Informatics and eHealth systems development.
Language:
- Fluency in English is required.
Specialized skills and/or training if needed:
- Excellent communication and working with people.
- Knowledge or familiarity with DHIS2 and its interoperability with open sources systems
- Knowledge Experience with Health Interoperability standards: HL7 V2, V3 and FHIRE.
- Knowledge and Experience of Java & Node.Js.
- Knowledge of Distributed Computing Architecture.
- Knowledge of SOAP and REST web services.
- Knowledge and Experience of Open HIMS mediator development. Open EMPI, and Open SHR
- Knowledge of CIEL dictionary.
- Knowledge of coding standards like SNOMED and LOINC
- Experience developing and deploying RapidPro.
- Experience developing and deploying SMS-based solutions and other low-bandwidth applications in challenging work environments.
- Experience optimizing databases
- Experience in Community Health Services
- Previous working experience with UN agencies is an added advantage.
For every Child, you demonstrate…
UNICEF’s values of Care, Respect, Integrity, Trust, Accountability, and Sustainability (CRITAS).
To view our competency framework, please visit here.
UNICEF offers reasonable accommodation for consultants/individual contractors with disabilities. This may include, for example, accessible software, travel assistance for missions or personal attendants. We encourage you to disclose your disability during your application in case you need reasonable accommodation during the selection process and afterwards in your assignment.
UNICEF has a zero-tolerance policy on conduct that is incompatible with the aims and objectives of the United Nations and UNICEF, including sexual exploitation and abuse, sexual harassment, abuse of authority and discrimination. UNICEF also adheres to strict child safeguarding principles. All selected candidates will be expected to adhere to these standards and principles and will therefore undergo rigorous reference and background checks. Background checks will include the verification of academic credential(s) and employment history. Selected candidates may be required to provide additional information to conduct a background check.
Remarks:
Only shortlisted candidates will be contacted and advance to the next stage of the selection process.
Individuals engaged under a consultancy or individual contract will not be considered “staff members” under the Staff Regulations and Rules of the United Nations and UNICEF’s policies and procedures, and will not be entitled to benefits provided therein (such as leave entitlements and medical insurance coverage). Their conditions of service will be governed by their contract and the General Conditions of Contracts for the Services of Consultants and Individual Contractors. Consultants and individual contractors are responsible for determining their tax liabilities and for the payment of any taxes and/or duties, in accordance with local or other applicable laws.
The selected candidate is solely responsible to ensure that the visa (applicable) and health insurance required to perform the duties of the contract are valid for the entire period of the contract. Selected candidates are subject to confirmation of fully-vaccinated status against SARS-CoV-2 (Covid-19) with a World Health Organization (WHO)-endorsed vaccine, which must be met prior to taking up the assignment. It does not apply to consultants who will work remotely and are not expected to work on or visit UNICEF premises, programme delivery locations or directly interact with communities UNICEF works with, nor to travel to perform functions for UNICEF for the duration of their consultancy contracts.