eHealth Programme reference implementation in primary health care facilities

The South African eHealth Strategy (2012) provided the framework to govern and co-ordinate initiatives supporting digital health in South Africa. This strategy formed the basis for a roadmap towards the development of a standards-based eHealth enterprise architecture. The Health Normative Standards Framework was published in order to support interoperability and convergence of data sources. The process of defining the integrated eHealth architecture building blocks did, however, highlight a lack of national co-ordination resulting in data repositories maturing in isolation without contributing to the broader eHealth ecosystem.Health Information and associated technologies have a high degree of complexity and in order to navigate the policy, legislative and regulatory terrain efficiently, the National Department of Health implemented an integrated programme in the 10 National Health Insurance (NHI) pilot districts. The programme was used to develop and refine the eHealth architecture building blocks and assess the challenges in implementation of the interoperability norms and standards. This is being achieved through a reference implementation methodology, as described in this chapter.Preliminary results indicate the need for in-depth engagement with the health system at the primary health care facility level. Local ownership is essential for the sustainability and success of the programme.