Uganda: RapidPro Health Suite Product Manager, UNICEF Global Innovation Lab, Kampala, Uganda
RapidPro Health Suite Product Manager
Global Innovation Centre
Duration: 11 months
Duty Station: UNICEF Global Innovation Lab, Kampala, Uganda
Level: Individual contract (Equivalent to P4 / NO-D)
BACKGROUND
UNICEF’s Innovation Unit and the UNICEF Global Innovation Centre are currently planning the scale up of several mobile driven tools supporting core UNICEF programmes such as in health, education, nutrition, coordination with partners, and broadcast media to facilitate gathering direct information in a timely and cost effective manner from hundreds of thousands of young people on everything from access to safe drinking water to views and behaviors about HIV and sex. Current development of the open-source technologies supporting UNICEF’s programmes require tools and components designed to accelerate replication by other country offices.
Evidence shows that digital health (eHealth), including strategies that leverage mobile technologies such as Short Message Service (SMS), can improve routine service delivery in terms of timely data collection and quality case management. Many of these eHealth systems show great potential in accelerating progress towards improving health service delivery. For example, in Uganda a nationally scaled RapidSMS based solution called mTrac supported by UNICEF and WHO has allowed the government to track anti-malarial medicines, contributing to a reduction in stock-outs from 79% in 2011 to 15.4% by 2014. However, current experience to date has been based primarily on pilot projects with few evaluations. As a result, large-scale implementation or integration of eHealth innovations within national government health programs is still limited. Therefore, there is an absence of adequate evidence about what works and knowledge of how to scale interventions that have demonstrated efficacy; and increasing calls for an evidence-based ‘systems approach’ to integrating these strategies into existing health systems.
One of the biggest challenges facing government and health development partners is the effort and cost required to deploy even the most basic eHealth system. While there are a number of eHealth tools that are hosted in the cloud or run off local computers, emerging government policies and laws are now increasingly requiring health data to be hosted at in-country data centres. This often necessitates sending in expensive foreign consultants, and hiring and training numerous technical staff to manage at great cost. Furthermore, establishing reverse-billed short codes – often a requirement for many mobile eHealth applications – can take years of negotiation with Mobile Network Operators in some countries. Furthermore, most investments in the eHealth space still do not take into account emerging best practices on enterprise level health information system architecture, including those coming from communities such as OpenHIE.
To address this, UNICEF has developed RapidPro.[1] RapidPro is designed for programmatic experts--not technologists--to be able to easily create SMS-based workflows to monitor programmes, track activities, or engage with beneficiaries. The platform includes tools for quick graphing and data analysis, as well as the ability to export data directly to Excel for further analysis. It retains and expands upon the functionalities of RapidSMS, which powers U-report, mTrac, Mother Reminder, Project Mwana, and the Rwanda’s RapidSMS 1,000 Days, but is easy to setup and manage without technical expertise. In addition, local government cloud hosting arrangements, service, and contracts with Mobile Network Operators will be taken care of by the UNICEF Global Innovation Centre in Nairobi, Kenya. UNICEF programmes in Rwanda, Tanzania and Uganda are planning to either upgrade their current RapidSMS systems or implement new programmes on top of the RapidPro platform. All other UNICEF programmes are being encouraged to adopt RapidPro as the platform of choice for running SMS based mobile programmes.
The Innovation Center in Nairobi and the UNICEF Innovation Unit in New Yorkscaling up RapidPro (http://www.rapidpro.io/) as UNICEF’s mobile phone based system for Real Time Data collection for improved monitoring of service delivery. RapidPro is a communication engine to power connections among decision makers, young people, and frontline workers and UNICEF. It’s been designed based on seven years’ experience, challenges, failures, successes, and lessons learned around implementing RapidSMS. It is specifically designed for programmatic experts not technologists to be able to set up, easily create SMS-based workflows, and monitor programs, track activities, or engage with beneficiaries.
UNICEF is currently exploring opportunities to support alignment of a number of key eHealth tools - including DHIS2, iHRIS - through the promotion and adoption of emerging best practices around health systems enterprise level architecture and Application Protocol Interfaces (API’s), and extend the functionality of a core set of eHealth tools that are already serving as the foundation for many national Health Information Systems through RapidPro; increasing the effectiveness of these tools exponentially and creating a platform for expanding specific interventions and programmes.
Additionally, a broader RapidPro supported “eHealth Suite of Tools” is planned, which will update and extend the reach of already UNICEF supported RapidSMS applications including maternal reminders, while adding new modules including a community counseling hotline application. This includes the community counseling hotline module (based off of the Zambia U-report HIV/AIDS counseling service) with an emphasis on breastfeeding and maternal, newborn, and child health counseling. The mother reminder application which will be built off of Project Mwana and the Uganda mother reminder systems, which strengthens the link between the community (through CHWs) and the formal health system (facilities).
In order for the work around building out the health suite of RapidPro, including interoperability with other open source mHealth solutions, to support the implementation of an MNCH grant by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and existing initiatives around The Every Newborn Action Plan, SUN movement, Global Fund-MNCH-Plus, Breastfeeding Advocacy, and iCCM initiatives to be properly designed, deployed, managed, UNICEF sees a great need to strategically place an mHealth product manager within UNICEF’s Health program.
PURPOSE OF THE APPOINTMENT
The product manager would serve as the focal point on RapidPro Health activities, while ensuring standards/principals are kept during deployments, mHealth/eHealth communities are engaged around the interoperability of RapidPro, partnerships are developed and maintained, and country offices are supported in developing and implementing mHealth activities pertaining to grants by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation (BMGF). The product manager will work between UNICEF’s Health and Innovation teams at headquarters and UNICEF’s Global Innovation Centre, with the expectation that country offices, RapidPro teams and stakeholders, and partners are visited when needed. The coordinator role will allow RapidPro to be strengthened in its health application rollouts and systematically integrated into other e and mHealth systems.
The general objective of this consultancy is to provide overall product mHealth coordination and strategy support to the UNICEF Global Innovation Centre. This candidate needs to gather large amount of information from various sources and synthesis is it into concrete plans for how the Global Innovation Centre should develop and package tools within the RapidPro Health suite.
It will require an ability to understand complex, abstract concepts, and ability to think creatively about best fitting technology for each project and build the end product. It will take an understanding of currently available technology and trends to develop effective solutions for the Health sector. It also requires an extensive background and presence in the mHealth/eHealth communities.
MAIN ACTIVITIES
? Working with UNICEF HQ Health Section, Regional offices and countries to develop a global mHealth approach on MNCH based on GreenTree principles and other existing best practices in the field.
? Supporting MNCH grant countries in mHealth strategy development and implementation, linking to other existing mHealth platforms in the country.
? Providing guidance to both UNICEF Health and Innovation teams on ways forward to further strengthen RapidPro’s suite of mHealth services in a sustainable fashion.
? Coordinating and aligning the RapidPro Health suite: roadmap and requirements with UNICEF HQ and Gates MNCH Grant strategies, and provide strategic guidance and oversight to the RapidPro Technical Architect and Product Managers
? Developing a scalable rollout and support strategy for deployments of maternal reminder and community counseling hotline application, including providing an integrated community support option for these products
? Work with the UNICEF Health team to integrate into the broader MNCH strategy, and develop budgets and fundraise where there are gaps in financing.
? Supporting coordination of the development of training materials and documentation for RapidPro suite of mHealth services in target countries;
? Participating in relevant standards/interoperability communities, working with existing open-source mHealth platforms (MoTECH, CommCare, DHIS2, OpenMRS, iHRIS etc) to ensure that any country implementation meets interoperability requirements.
? Assessing further support needs required by countries to rollout RapidPro mHealth services and integration.
? Review existing UNICEF Health strategies, and provide recommendations to mainstream emerging best practices in the field of digital health systems into UNICEF programmes.
QUALIFICATIONS AND EDUCATION
At least 8 years of professional experience. Proven experience in the mHealth field - especially on deployment of mHealth systems with multiple partners and multiple systems. Significant experience with project management with an ability to translate complex ideas from various fields into unified, clear guidance is a must. Advanced degree in a relevant field or equivalent related practical experience.
Additional Experience and Knowledge:
Project Manager who is comfortable working on the database, front-end code, and everything in between.
Exposure to managing external software vendors
Experience writing technical contracts
Experience writing technical documentation
Experience working in working, designing, or deploying solutions in/for low-resource settings
Extensive experience working with the mHealth/eHealth community
Knowledge and experience with MoTECH, CommCare, DHIS2, OpenMRS, iHRIS, OpenHIE, etc
Familiarity with open-source technology
Excellent written and verbal communication skills
Experience with processing large amount of information and synthesizing it
Ability to work in a team and in a diverse work environment.
Languages:
Fluency in English.
Visit us at www.unicefstories.organd www.unicef.org/innovation
How to apply:
Interested and suitable candidates should send their applications, including Cover letter, P-11 (http://www.unicef.org/about/employ/files/P11.doc), CV, Github ID and copies of their last two Performance Evaluation Reports (where applicable) with Subject “RapidPro Health Suite Product Manager” to: jobsugic@gmail.comon or before 11 January 2015. Applicants must clearly indicate the position applied for and use this order to name file attachments: Firstname_Lastname followed by document e.g. Gold_Mukasa_P11 or Gold_Mukasa_CV or Gold_Mukasa_CoverLetter. Only short listed candidates will be contacted.
