Digital communities of practice: one step towards decolonising global health partnerships

Abstract

This commentary is dedicated to the memory of Diamantino de Jesus from the Universidade Nacional de Timor Loro-Sae who was an active member of the community of practice (CoP) until his untimely death on 8 September 2021.

Development of the Systems Thinking for Health Actions framework: a literature review and a case study

“…This research was conducted as part of a bigger project, the ST-DHS initiative, which was implemented in three countries: Botswana, Pakistan and Timor-Leste. The initiative provided two districts per country with ST tools and methods, aiming to improve local health systems with the new knowledge on how to apply ST. 16 …”

“…15 One practical application of ST in health has been the Systems Thinking for District Health Systems (ST-DHS) initiative, which supported countries and health districts, to apply ST tools and practices to understand and intervene in their local health systems. 16 As part of this initiative and to address the gaps in the application of ST in health systems, we have developed the 'Systems Thinking for Health Actions (STHA)' framework. This framework provides a structured approach to assessing the extent of application of ST in health actions, where ST terminology may not have been explicitly used.…”

“…This research was conducted as part of a bigger project, the ST-DHS initiative, which was implemented in three countries: Botswana, Pakistan and Timor-Leste. The initiative provided two districts per country with ST tools and methods, aiming to improve local health systems with the new knowledge on how to apply ST. 16 Systematised literature review A systematised literature review was conducted to create the STHA framework. This type of review contains elements of a systematic review but is missing elements that a systematic review would have, such as having two reviewers and registration of the review.…”

Leveraging Data and Technology to Enhance Interdisciplinary Collaboration and Health Outcomes

“…The Healthcare Information and Management Systems Society's (HIMSS) Digital Health Indicator (DHI) was introduced as a self-assessment tool to measure the digital capability of healthcare services across four key dimensions: interoperability, person-enabled health, predictive analytics, and governance and workforce. The concept of online Community of Practice (CoP), in the words of Fruchtman et al [27], relates instead to the efforts of global health partnerships towards the facilitation of collective learning and engagement around the use of systems thinking for district health systems from low-and middle-income countries. In both cases, the need emerges for effective collaborations among different actors to develop affordable and sustainable digital-enabled healthcare systems.…”

Pivoting from systems “thinking” to systems “doing” in health systems—Documenting stakeholder perspectives from Southeast Asia

“…Given the need for addressing these lacunae, the WHO Alliance for Health Policy and Systems Research (WHO AHPSR), in collaboration with partners across five global regions launched a Systems Thinking Accelerator (SYSTAC) in 2021 ( 24 ). Drawing from an outgrowth of learnings from the Systems Thinking for District Health Systems project implementation in Timor Leste, Pakistan, and Botswana, ( 25 ) SYSTAC was operationalized as a global community of practice for applied systems thinking in policy and practice contexts within LMICs.…”