October 13, 2020

Carl Leitner

As per the Implementation Opportunity Trello Board: 

Info requests to the group today:

• Any updates from CHAI re: eSwatini? (is this a confirmed green light or still working out details)?
  • Gaurav: yes its a green light; scope is broad; OpenLMIS is smaller piece of the overall implementation; will plug the team in via the product committee. This is a fast timeline, until June 2021
  • Brandon: feel free to reach out; the implementer toolkit has a lot of resources (M&E plans, training guides, etc.). We could have a call to help orient your team to the tools
  • Emily: What happens in June 2021? Handover...How can the community support this aspect?
    • Gaurav: Important conversation; discussing handover/sustainability now versus later is a trade-off. We might risk deploying a no-name system that would not last. Small deployment (3 facilities) we expect MoH will put in additional funding (in addition to GF funding) to bring it to scale
    • Ashraf: The June timeline is an improvement from the original timeline. In the next fiscal year there could be continued opportunity to request funds from GF

 Updates to the group from this month:

• Nigeria conversations- via ARC
• Equitorial Guinea interest- very small scope
• Re: OpenLMIS COVID Edition:
  • Cameroon progressing well; Zimbabwe is not moving forward
    • system in Cameroon has been very stable; trained 50 users; have been navigating bureaucracy for all users to utilize the system
    • plans to expand to an additional 250 facilities 
    • GIZ interested in expanding this to essential medicines, RH
    • GF interested in 1000 additional facilities for Malaria, HIV/TB
    • NO additional funding available for COVID; we are overextended with scope and scale of deployment
    • Request from MoH to look at interoperability with DHIS2–this is on the backburner because MoH hasn't been able to prioritize it to figure out their requirements; Oslo team has been looped in and are on standby for this
  • Active conversations and advocacy in DRC
    • Still at advocacy stage w/ the MoH departments to get consensus
    • COVID Task Force is requesting deployment, 
    • Parallel conversation with PATH re: need to track oxygen supplies (status/location) so this is a good fit for the COVID Edition. This has linked in the biomedical department; will elevate it to the Minister of Health
    • In discussion with PNAM; existing system is InfoMed which pulls stock data from DHIS2 and use this data for replenishment. There is recognition that this is not an LMIS but could be expanded to do so (as was done in Benin). We don't have visibility into what is being used in Benin to be able to compare
    • We are proposing OpenLMIS to interoperate with DHIS2 
  • Resilient Systems for COVID (Dfid grant)
    • Our application was shortlisted, awaiting further info
  • Carl: Should we reach out to DHIS2 to understand more about the job posting re: full time person to focus on Tracker and supply chain? →Carl can dig in and try to find out more to help connect
  • Gaurav: We have talked to supply chain folks at DHIS2 and got a demo of the tool but havent talked to their interoperability group
  • Brandon: this person is going to really build out their roadmap, but their roadmap could be more about interoperability with OpenLMIS. We tried to pull in Bob & Morton (interoperability team) but could not engage with them. We were not sure how to advance the conversation and advocate for interoperability

Kim Couri

Partnership to Handover Update

Pdf of slides presented: 

• Review current pipeline
• Next steps for final shortlisted candidates
• Process and expectations for final voting

• Recap of what is Enterprise Support
  • New Descriptive flyer available on website to show to stakeholders: https://openlmis.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/10/OpenLMIS_EnterpriseSupportDoc_FINAL.pdf

• Discussion: solicit feedback re: service tiers and value add 
  • (Carl) For those that are v2, what is the roadmap on planned upgrades to v3? Is there a value prop that we could provide them on enterprise support?
    • (Wes) Some pieces that could be valuable for v1/v2, which is the migration piece that we've been working on. Using it in the TZ upgrade. Spinning up a demo instance for marketing purposes is also useful. Third piece is for anyone who is entertaining the possibility of an upgrade, having access to the core team to bounce ideas off of and have more dedicated time to ask questions and get feedback is a pretty big value add.
  • (Edward) When you look at enterprise support flyer, it is a tough sell for v2 countries. While many may aspirationally hope to get there, they don't have the funding and roadmap to do that. Part of the challenge is with this transition to a commercial partner, a number of people will want to wait to see what happens before making a commitment to move to v3, would want to see what the future looks like first as well. Need to show that you're getting direct support for the funding, many countries we work with have slim budgets and can hardly pay for direct maintenance support.
  • (Gaurav) Enterprise support model is competing against other support that they may be able to get for v2/v1. Are we being competitive? It also may not make sense to piece together their support for enterprise support and other support until they fully upgrade to v3.
  • (Ashraf) For smaller countries, don't have much budget to begin with. Some budgets are $50k for maintenance; to add on $25k is a 50% increase to their budget. In flyer, existing v2 countries, when they need support for maintenance, can't relate to the support for current issues. In context of upgrade, may be able to get additional support, which would require county to make the decision to upgrade and determine how to seek funding. Background chatter hearing that people are worried about how new structure takes place, who is taking over, what roles they're agreeing to. Believe once this has taken shape, they may be more willing to upgrade and request funds from the funder. We can only relay our feedback, but they need to make the case to mission to give them the go-ahead to allocate funds.
  • (Carl) Hearing that messaging from the donors as to why this is important could then be shared out to country offices. Getting donor support on this approach from BMGF and USAID at the HQ level, we just need to translate it down to the country levels.
  • (Ashraf) Also country by country meetings, at least for JSI counties, will invite us and in those forums would like to have one voice and convince them.
  • (Edward) I'm sure HQ support is helpful but as Lindabeth can probably explain, USAID missions are autonomous. Mission will make their own decisions about how to spend funds.
  • (Lindabeth) Agree. Trying to advocate for this, though it is each country's decision in working with their implementing partner on what is affordable to support.
  • (Emily) Great that Malawi is on board, but could cause challenges. Great that we're learning as we go, but could create more problems when you have different levels of participation. Need to have messaging/guidance/understand impact that some are signing on for this and some aren't, and what that means in the long-term.
  • (Wes) As open source, we'll always be open, but need to articulate what the difference is. There is some level of support no matter what, but need to be clear on what advanced support is.
  • (Edward) Some reflection on what countries can afford (vs. funded by additional projects) would be useful
  • (Brandon) Could do a survey or something, but think this is really important.
• Update on establishing the fund
  • Process for transparently receiving and reporting on funding

Upcoming (Virtual) Conferences for 2020 (let's add them here!)

• Global Health Supply Chain Summit
  • Nov 9-20th (virtual)
• Global Digital Health Forum 
  • December 2020 (virtual)
  • OpenLMIS core team submitted abstracts

Country implementation opportunities: