Digital Health Investment Review Tool

Publication date: December 2018
Author: MCSP and its partners

Too often, digital health investments are made without the time or resources to develop a deep technical knowledge of the information and communications technologies that underpin them, or the ecosystem in which these technologies are used. The purpose of the Digital Health Investment Review Tool is to provide high-level guidance based on widely accepted best practices such as the Principles for Digital Development and the Principles for Donor Investment that can be used to support strategic investments in the use of digital technologies to support the public and global health.

The Digital Health Investment Review Tool includes (a):

Specific objectives include the development of a language and tools that can help to:

• Structure RFPs (or other donor procurement mechanisms),
• Inform the language of grants and contracts, and
• Support informed advice/decision making by Procurement Officers considering digital health proposals.

The primary audience for this tool is people involved in designing, creating proposals, evaluating, and making purchasing decisions regarding the development of digital health systems. This covers a number of stakeholder groups, including:

• National governments, including Ministries of Health and IT, issuing calls for proposals for and/or reviewing potential investments in digital health
• Regional bodies, such as those at the sub-regional or regional level, that make recommendations and provide advice on investments in digital health
• Donors, who fund or plan to fund digital health activities
• Implementers, who can use the criteria to ensure they present strong proposals

The intent is for this work to be undertaken in an agile and iterative manner, with frequent focus groups and product testing with intended users. Desired end products are intended to serve as global goods – tools that can be adapted and reused by a variety of audience segments for their own internal purposes.