April 13, 2021

Introductions and Call opening (5 min)

• Notes from Feb Governance call

March Notes

Welcome

Review agenda for this call;

COVID 19 Edition- Update

- Vitalliance has hired Dean to lead the transition, he’s had a meet and greet with the Stewards, onboarding/KT has started, and we’re working with Vitalliance to develop milestones and effectively support the transition. 

• Kim's contract is continuing in April at lower LOE but still engaged; will stay involved in May and June for periodic check-ins and remain a channel to support the OpenLMIS Steward team

Navigating change: 

• Share any transition-related questions with Brandon & Kim
• All other inquiries can go to the Stewards per usual
• Resources are online: https://openlmis.org/transition/

Next steps: Rebecca will be reaching out to schedule conversations with implementing partners. Stay tuned for a more detailed transition plan in May.

OpenLMIS Community engagement and this forum will be changing starting this summer

Strategic Oversight Committee and the Key User Group are new forums for engagement that Vitalliance will use to engage on governance and product issues. Both must be formed by June 4, 2021

This is what is in the agreement:

• Key User Group will provide input on the product; open to active members of the Product Committee.

• Strategic Oversight Committee will provide accountability and guidance; may help select a neutral third party to manage IP. Will include VillageReach, USAID, and BMGF.

Discussion: What’s most important to you? ask GC voting members and regular attendees to speak up about what areas they want to be informed about, consulted, or have any power/vote/authority over, to inform how these new groups are managed

• What is most important to you as we launch these new groups?
  • (Carl) Unclear the role of DSQ and where/how it should be participating. Not in key user group role, and have stepped away from the transition committee before. Answer could be that there's not a need.
  • (Brandon) Think the Key User Group is the best place for DSQ to promote interoperability and ensure the roadmap fits the rest of the OpenHIE ecosystem. That's an important voice.
  • (Carl) Title of the group is perhaps a bit different. Is it really a user group? A way to encourage sharing of the product roadmap.
  • (Rebecca) Don't want it to sound like it's only for end users. Intent of group could stay the same with others who interact with countries and know the needs.
  • (Carl) What is the time frames for the tours?
  • (Rebecca) Expect this will be a milestone outlined in the timelines; will draw from existing materials. Groups contractually need to be formed by June.
• What practices have worked in the current committee structure that you’d like to see carry over?
  • (Brandon) Tours (how long) vs. TORs? Any information we should ask them to get clear on?
  • (Carl) What input means? How do you get on/off? Some of the things that we did at the beginning of processes and making sure they're clearly articulated.
  • (Ashraf) Forum for trusted implementers and new opportunities. In this transition mechanism, how do we plan to handle this?
  • (Rebecca) Right now, no new processes. Continue to do things the way we have until Vitalliance steps up and introduces something else. Very early stage for them. Don't have this transition lead on board yet, haven't had the time to wrap their heads around implementing new yet, so foresee the next few months continuing BAU.
  • (Brandon) Impression of key user group was for it to serve as both the evolution of the product committee, and also would serve as an evolution of the TPs group (channel partners). Open to feedback about if these can merge into one forum or not.
  • (Ashraf) Impression only driven in how we've seen these two structures work. Dealing with milestones and versions in product committee and GC was higher level, plus access to the donors. More mileage that you get with donor audience. Now it depends on how OpenLMIS outlines new group; can try to transform it to new vision but face challenge about what mileage attendees will get without access to donors.
  • (Lindabeth) Appreciate hearing from partners, want to know how we can get that information across.
  • (Brian) Perhaps a mechanism for feedback to get back to strategic oversight committee could be a good path.
  • (Rebecca) Maybe key user group feeds high level takeaways to strategic oversight committee.
• What risks do you see with the new groups? How can we address them?
  • (Carl) Run the risk of loss of information. Glad we have overlap with these groups. Urge us to err on the side of extra redundancy rather than less information.
  • (Rebecca) Agree that we should have lots of information flowing in the right places and nothing gets lost in the transition.

Action item for us: figure out which individuals will sit on each, determine titles of groups, cadences, defining the TORs.

**Send out a question about what HASN'T worked with the GC, perhaps a survey can be shared w/ GC and help inform where Vitalliance goes next.

(Brian) And we are really looking forward to having voices from you all on the Key User Group. Hopefully, individuals within your respective orgs can participate.

(Kim) Titles (of the groups) are definitely flexible!

(Wes) Maybe “Stakeholders” instead of Users?

(Brian) +1 Wes. Was seeing this more as Stakeholders vs. Users

(Kim) The groups individually can be empowered to determine the cadences, too

(Kelly) I guess there is no stopping Lindabeth or I from joining the Stakeholders group...

• VillageReach and JSI signed a Contributor License Agreement (CLA) for contributions JSI staff have made and continue to make into OpenLMIS v3. This includes the current Tanzania GHSC-TA project. USAID also approved that JSI and VillageReach assert copyright for those USAID- funded contributions. No change to license, just documenting this.
• For the future all contributors will sign either a Contributor Assignment Agreement (CAA) or the CLA.  We are drafting that language for formal review before next Governance Call on May 11.

Update that we have decided to prioritize this; just ask FYI so folks are aware that this is coming and can refer to it in conversations

• Planning meeting for mobile application tomorrow at 7 AM PST. Please let Wes know if you would like the invite
• Finishing up release 3.11
• Based on feedback from product committee and many requests from demos, is an MVP approach to a mobile app

Notes:

• (Rebecca) This came up a lot in UNDP conversations, lots of global stakeholders are excited about this
• (Carl) Have you looked at tech stack?
• (Wes) Want to look at goals during meeting, which will help determine the tech stack
• (Carl) Might be potential support from Google if you take a FHIR approach

• Number of changes to key positions in Zambia and Malawi MOH
• Department level discussions in Zambia extremely positive
• 2 supplier meetings conducted and very encouraging; rest being scheduled

(topic to save for future meeting)

Comparing OpenLMIS and DHIS2 capabilities

How do we advise countries on what each system can do for them for COVID?

DHIS2 has better data collection and vaccine tracking; they have an EIR-like data capture that tracks patients and their doses

larger question: why are we still being reactive, we knew this vaccine would be coming and haven't been able to prepare. So DHIS2 has stepped in to fill the hole

Conferences and Meetings

Conferences provide the community the opportunity for OpenLMIS members to speak or represent the OpenLMIS software and community in public forum.

Opportunities documentation

Definitions to use shared terminology:

• Implementation opportunity: an opportunity for an implementation or deployment of the OpenLMIS software.  Usually this is done at a national or sub-national level within a ministry of health. This can also include feature work which would be done within the implementation and contributed back to the global codebase.
• Community opportunity: a funding opportunity to support an organization or individual to work directly on the global codebase and/or administrate the community processes. This may include funding specific features on the community roadmap.

• This Trello table is being updated on an ongoing basis; to help the core team to track and manage implementation opportunities, but also provides a detailed snapshot of the scope and status of current implementation opportunities for stakeholders.

Community Opportunities:

• New Trello table! Similar to the above table, this tool is being used by the stewards to track our exploring of new product opportunities and partnerships

Study Tours:

• Study Tours wiki page tracks applications received, study tours completed, and other key milestones related to OpenLMIS Study Tours (this activity is no longer active due to COVID-19)