International Consultant – Health Information Management

Purpose of consultancy

In the context of the ongoing major reforms with substantial decentralization to the provinces and municipalities, the incumbent will contribute to WHO's support in Health Information System Strengthening during normalcy and in emergencies in line with eHealth Strategy; Integrated Health Information Management System framework; Digital Health / Health Informatics / Surveillance / Health Management Information Systems Evaluations to facilitate government efforts to inform Evidence-based policy, planning and response to Health Systems Strengthening and Resilience to emergencies.

Objective of the Programme

The objective of the WHO Nepal Country Office is to implement the Country Cooperation Strategy by supporting the Ministry of Health and Population (MoHP), Government of Nepal (GoN) in the formulation, implementation and evaluation of national health policies, strategies and plans and developing and managing WHO's technical cooperation programmes at the country level. The Country Office collaborates with the Government of Nepal and relevant stakeholders in support of their efforts of achieving national health goals; ensuring the attainment of universal health coverage and of contributing to global and regional public health action by providing need-based technical assistance in national level policy formulation, setting norms and standards, improving knowledge dissemination and management, monitoring country health situation and building sustainable institutional capacity, to play a greater leadership role in different national-level policy technical forums. WHO provides guidance and technical support in organizing the humanitarian health response following multi-hazard emergencies and in revitalizing the capacity of the health sector to recover and rebuild from emergencies in appropriate and sustainable ways. In the inter-emergency period the objectives are to increase the capacity and resilience of the Nepal Health System to reduce risk, prevent and prepare for disasters, to mitigate adverse health consequences, through supporting the Emergency Risk Management interventions prioritized in the national plan for the implementation of the Sendai Framework for Disaster Risk Reduction (2015-2030); and the health security interventions for enhancement of core capacities required to comply with the International Health Regulations (IHR) 2005 as prioritized in the National Action Plan on Health Security (NAPHS), National Action Plan on Anti-Microbial Resistance (NAP-AMR) One and National Pandemic Preparedness and Response Plan (NPPRP).WHO strives to integrate and harmonize the actions undertaken for enhanced One Health, Food Safety, ERM and Health Security with the interventions implemented to achieve the health-related Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and health systems strengthening through appropriate capacity building and co-ordination mechanisms and partnerships. The WHO Health Emergencies Programme (WHE) supports the MoHP, GoN to direct and coordinate the rapid provision of life-saving emergency health interventions at scale in the aftermath of multi-hazard emergencies and disasters and subsequently assists in the rapid recovery of the health system in collaboration with national and international partners. Thereupon it provides technical support to the MoHP and partners to enhance health sector emergency risk management through prevention risk reduction or mitigation; preparedness and response readiness to build a health system that is resilient to multi-hazard disasters including public health emergencies.

Description of duties

Under the overall strategic guidance and direct supervision of the WHO Representative and the technical guidance of the Team Leads of WHO Country Office for Nepal, the incumbent will perform the following duties:

• Provide technical guidance on appropriate design, deployment and institutionalization of health informatics and digital health interventions in line with National eHealth Strategy, eHealth and Integrated Health Information Management System (IHIMS) Roadmaps, and WHO Global and Regional Digital Health Strategies, Action Plans, and Guidance.
• Provide hands-on technical support on the effective assessment, situation analysis, design, planning, deployment, expansion, and sustainability of information and communications technology (ICT)-enabled solutions across the health system for prioritizing, planning, delivering, monitoring and management of health services, public health interventions such as immunization and specific information systems essential for each health systems building block.
• Support the development and implementation of a health information architecture to enable standards-based, interoperable Health Information Exchange (HIE) for smooth information flow to benefit all public health programmes and public health emergency risk management interventions.
• Support HMIS/DHIS2 to integrate various streams of health information systems and strengthen mechanisms and capacity for data quality assurance; timeliness and completeness of reporting; effective analysis; generation of information products and seamless sharing of relevant information and products across different public health programmes and public health emergency management interventions.
• Enable the adaptation and roll out of robust epidemiological and laboratory based surveillance, case investigation and contact tracing systems and their harmonized functioning in an integrated manner at the national and sub-national levels for early identification of potential public health events and outbreaks and enabling rapid response for their containment such as the IMU application, SORMAS, Go.Data, WHONET etc .
• Design/Adapt and establish systems for public health emergency risk monitoring such as INFORM and for early detection, verification, risk assessment and rapid reporting of acute public health events including those that may lead to public health emergencies of national/international concern using a variety of formal and informal information and health intelligence sources as utilized in the WHO Epidemic Intelligence Open Source (EIOS).
• Support in the design, development and deployment of a health information repository and decision support platform such as OSCAR for consolidation of information generated from routine/legacy and ad hoc / emergency health information systems for effective epidemiological and geo-spatial analysis, visualization, dissemination and generation of evidence- based response scenarios, options and decisions.
• Support development and roll out and inter- operability of electronic health and electronic medical records in various types of hospitals and community level health facilities of Nepal with primary focus on the public health sector.
• Provide guidance to strengthen civil registration and vital statistics (CRVS) systems through multi-sectoral approaches and link them with relevant health information management systems including medical certification of deaths; Maternal and Perinatal Death Surveillance and Reporting (MPDSR) and information systems for morbidity, complications and mortality outcomes of Non-Communicable Diseases (NCD) to enable efficient triangulation of events and outcomes of interest to health sector interventions, disease burden estimation and health sector planning.
• Support to build country capacity on health informatics through the development and deployment of a pre-service and in- service training strategies and packages for information managers; medical, paramedical and allied health professionals at all levels that always enables effective information management in all situations.
• Support HMIS, EDCD, HEOC and other relevant divisions / centers of DoHS/MOHP to conduct detailed analysis of information collected to generate health situation updates, programme performance reports and policy briefs for correcting existing and designing new health programmes and system strengthening interventions.
• Collaborate / Liaise with relevant government and partner agencies, regional and global experts, collaborative forums and communities to improve the outcomes of partnerships and resources available for digital health interventions; identify resource and partnership gaps and mobilize additional resources / facilitate new partnerships needed for further enhancing the national health information systems and platforms align with global best practices on health information, digital health and monitoring and evaluation.
• On behalf of WCO Nepal, lead the collation and analysis of data collected from various information / reporting systems, support generation of strategic health information/statistics products and their effective dissemination.
• Develop and provide capacity building and training to colleagues within WCO Nepal and key government and partner agencies focusing on enhancing analytics, visualization and knowledge management and informatics competencies; and promote a culture of internal and external collaboration and cross-cutting team work to ensure optimal generation, collection, collation , analysis, reporting and sharing of data and information for favorable health outcomes.
• Undertake any other tasks and duties assigned by the WHO Representative or delegated official as required.
• Submit an end of Technical and Financial Report (Mandatory)

Deliverables

• Prepare the monthly technical report and submit it to Team Lead..
• Final financial and technical report at the end of assignment.

Qualifications, experience, skills and languages

Educational Qualifications:

Essential: University degree in Medicine or Public Health from a recognized institute

Desirable: Post-graduate degree or training on Public Heath Informatics or related field from a recognized institute

Experience

Essential:

• At least seven years relevant experience in the areas of health analytics, health informatics operations, digital health applications in epidemiology, monitoring and evaluation.
• Demonstrated exposure at international level.

Desirable:

• Relevant work experience in WHO, other UN agencies or in non-governmental organizations.
• Experience in formulation, planning, management, implementation, and reporting on projects in public health informatics related areas to support disaster or public health emergency preparedness or response.

Skills/Knowledge:

• Core competencies in data collection, analysis, interpretation and reporting for surveillance, epidemiologic, operational and health systems performance monitoring objectives with experience in providing technical assistance in these areas in both normalcy and during multi-hazard and public health emergencies.
• Demonstrated ability in planning , organization and management of health information systems and digital health solutions, and capability to relate to and clearly articulate and advocate for health information systems strengthening concepts and operations at various levels of the health system, taking account of the health needs, political and technical constraints and resource limitation
• Strong knowledge of public health informatics theories, principles, concepts, and standards; especially health information exchange standards for interoperability of subsystems and experience with Open HIE framework.
• Proven skills and strong experience in enhancing organization, management and monitoring and evaluation of health programme / project interventions using digital solutions in normal times and during emergencies.
• Ability to work with senior government and partner agency officials at national and international levels and capacity to adapt to multicultural environments with effective interpersonal skills
• Ability to work under pressure especially during emergencies and excellent verbal and written communication and presentation skills.
• Technical Expertise; Overall attitude at work, in accordance with the required mandatory competencies
• Excellent knowledge of MS Office applications and computer skills for making high-quality technical presentations including data analysis.

Languages and level required (Basic/Intermediate/Advanced): Advanced

Location: On site: Kathmandu, Nepal

Travel: Selected Candidate is expected to travel within any 7 provinces of Nepal.

Remuneration and budget (travel costs are excluded):

• Remuneration: Monthly remuneration at US$ 7,500/- (US$ Seven thousand and five hundred only)
• Living expenses: Per diem will be paid as per WHO rules applicable to international consultant for travel.
• Expected duration of contract: initially till the end of Dec 2023.

Additional Information:

• This vacancy notice may be used to identify candidates for other similar consultancies at the same level.
• Only candidates under serious consideration will be contacted.
• A written test may be used as a form of screening.
• If your candidature is retained for interview, you will be required to provide, in advance, a scanned copy of the degree(s)/ diploma(s)/certificate(s) in English required for this position. WHO only considers higher educational qualifications obtained from an institution accredited/recognized in the World Higher Education Database (WHED), a list updated by the International Association of Universities (IAU)/United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO). The list can be accessed through the link: http://www.whed.net/. Some professional certificates may not appear in the WHED and will require individual review.
• For information on WHO's operations please visit: http://www.who.int.
• WHO is committed to workforce diversity.
• WHO has a smoke-free environment and does not recruit smokers or users of any form of tobacco.
• Applications from women and from nationals of non and underrepresented Member States are particularly encouraged.
• WHO prides itself on a workforce that adheres to the highest ethical and professional standards and that is committed to put the WHO Values Charter into practice.
• WHO has zero tolerance towards sexual exploitation and abuse (SEA), sexual harassment and other types of abusive conduct (i.e., discrimination, abuse of authority and harassment). All members of the WHO workforce have a role to play in promoting a safe and respectful workplace and should report to WHO any actual or suspected cases of SEA, sexual harassment and other types of abusive conduct. To ensure that individuals with a substantiated history of SEA, sexual harassment or other types of abusive conduct are not hired by the Organization, WHO will conduct a background verification of final candidates.
• Consultants shall perform the work as independent contractors in a personal capacity, and not as a representative of any entity or authority. The execution of the work under a consultant contract does not create an employer/employee relationship between WHO and the Consultant.
• WHO shall have no responsibility whatsoever for any taxes, duties, social security contributions or other contributions payable by the Consultant. The Consultant shall be solely responsible for withholding and paying any taxes, duties, social security contributions and any other contributions which are applicable to the Consultant in in each location/jurisdiction in which the work hereunder is performed, and the Consultant shall not be entitled to any reimbursement thereof by WHO.