1. About the Community Health System Stakeholder Meeting
The community health system stakeholder meeting was held for one day at Nashera hotel in Morogoro, Tanzania. The aim of the meeting was to discuss the progress and development of a Unified Community Health System (UCHS). The meeting was hosted jointly by the Ministry of Health and PATH. The participants were some implementing partners like Apotheker Consultancy Limited, D-tree International, Ifakara Health Institute, Mkapa Foundation, Amref, Delloite, Jphiego, THPS, and some government officials from POLARG. USAID, UNICEF, DoD, and CDC are some of the donors that attended the meeting.
2. Objective of the Meeting
- To understand stakeholder needs for a digitalized community health system through extensive user requirement gathering
- To document step-by-step business flow and processes for community health intervention
- To review, improve the existing and develop new digitized processes of community health intervention
- To provide continuous support, knowledge transfer, and change management to ensure a sustainable digitized community health system
- To deliver an end-to-end digital solution that is interoperable with the health facility’s system to complete the loop of care continuum from registration, care, referral, and re-engagement cycle
3. Opening
The meeting was officially opened by the representative from the Ministry of Health, Mr. Tumainiela Macha who welcomed all the participants to the meeting and explained that the meeting has been convened for the purpose of deliberating on the unification of effort in developing a community health information system for Tanzania Mr. Macha on his speech expressed that Digital Health is meant to drive health results and even though the impact will only be seen much later, it is essential to start somewhere for the envisioned impact to be realized and that, although NACP has been on the forefront towards adopting a single community health information system for the country, they appreciate that such a system goes beyond the needs of HIV/ AIDS programs and that “A Grand Vision”, encompassing the requirements and efforts of all programs must be pursued.
Meeting participants had the opportunity to discuss the community health system and a Vision Statement was suggested: “A single, agile national community health system that meets a national-wide minimum stakeholder’s needs”
He also thanked partners and donors who participated in the Community Health System stakeholders meeting and invited all participants to introduce themselves.
4. Achievement
The Community Health System Stakeholder meeting was closed by a representative from the President’s Office – Regional Administration and Local Government and the following achievements were achieved during the meeting.
- Raised awareness on the importance of having A single, agile national community health system that meets a national-wide minimum stakeholder’s needs and participants
- It was stated that efforts (Financial and skills) by various organizations should focus on the formation of a unified UCHS
- The existing digital community health system should continue with the vision of integrating a unified health system
- The consensus reached was on the use of the Open SRP
- To conduct a continuous review of the existing system and provide practicable recommendations.
- Participants have broadly accepted the proposed mission statement with recommendations for changes that will be taken on board
