Invitation to Consultancy Service to Improve the Ethiopian Central Discovery System

The International Institute for Primary Health Care – Ethiopia (IPHC-E) was established by the Federal Ministry of Health (FMOH) to work on strengthening Ethiopia’s Primary Health Care (PHC) system in the context of achieving Universal Health Coverage (UHC) and meeting the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) for health. It does this by serving as a global re- source for PHC, building capacity through training and information sharing, carrying out re- search into health systems implementation, and contributing to the global advocacy for UHC through Primary Health Care.

The institute is envisioned to be a world-class hub to learn about Ethiopia’s experience using PHC approaches to achieve improvements in health. Through PHC knowledge generation and management, the Institute provides up-to-date information on PHC and contributes to contin- ually building stronger PHC programs in low- and middle-income countries. The IPHC-E Re- source Center develops resources to share knowledge, information, and promising practices to inform health professionals, researchers, and anyone interested in primary health care.

American International Health Alliance (AIHA), with funding from the Gates Foundation (GF), leverages its experience in establishing twinning partnerships to strengthen IPHC-E’s capacity in the identified technical areas, capacitate IPHC-E, institutionalize best practices, and share lessons learned.

IPHC-E is looking to recruit a consultancy firm to improve/enhance the current “Ethiopian Central Discovery System” (ECDS). The existing ECDS faces limitations and areas for im- provement, including interoperability challenges between different systems, data quality is- sues, and limited analytical capabilities.

Scope of Work:

The consultants or consultancy firms are expected to carry out the following tasks to improve the Ethiopian Central Discovery System to enhance its effectiveness, efficiency, and impact on the healthcare system.

• Conduct a comprehensive assessment of the existing ECDS: Evaluate the current in- frastructure, data analysis capabilities, user experience, interoperability with other systems, governance structures, and sustainability aspects
• Engage stakeholders (IPHC-E and partner universities) to incorporate their feedback for the ECDS improvement
• Identify key areas for improvement: Based on assessment and discussions with stake- holders, identify critical areas that require immediate and long-term solutions
• Develop a detailed improvement plan: Outline specific, measurable, achievable, rele- vant, and time-bound (SMART) activities to address the identified areas for improve- ment. This plan should include and be approved by IPHC-E and partner universities:
  • Technical improvements: Upgrading, implementing interoperability solutions, adopting new technologies, and automatic metadata harvesting.
  • Capacity building: Developing training programs for users at all levels, providing technical support.
  • Sustainability plan: Ensuring long-term technical support, establishing local ownership and capacity for system maintenance and development.
• Develop and implement enhanced functionalities: Based on the improvement plan, implement new functionalities and features for the ECDS that directly address the identified needs and objectives
• Provide training for system administrators and librarians of IPHC-E and partner uni- versities
• Pilot implementation and monitoring
• Sustainability and handover

Expected Deliverables:

• Inception Report: Outlining the project approach, governance structure, and stake- holder engagement plan.
• Assessment Report of the Existing ECDS: Detailed report documenting the findings of the assessment of the current CDS, including strengths, weaknesses, and areas for improvement.
• Detailed Improvement Plan: Comprehensive plan outlining specific activities, time- lines, resource requirements, and responsible parties for improving the ECDS.
• Technical Specifications Document: Documenting the technical specifications for system upgrades and new functionalities. Incorporating metrics to extract statistics on usage from the ECDS system
• Capacity Building Plan: Outlining the training and capacity-building activities for ECDS administrators and users.
• Enhanced and Functional ECDS: A fully functional and improved CDS, implemented and rolled out across the Ethiopian system (or selected pilot sites initially, depending on the plan).
• Training Materials and User Manuals: Comprehensive training materials and user manuals for different user groups.
• Final Project Report: Comprehensive report summarizing the entire project, achieve- ments, lessons learned, and recommendations for future development.

Expected Outcome of the ECDS

• The implementation of ECDS is expected to have the functionalities of storing, man- aging, manipulating, and retrieving library documents from various local sources, in- cluding IPHC-E partners.
• It is also expected to have improved data visualization dashboards, advanced analyti- cal tools, enhanced search capabilities, secure data sharing mechanisms, mobile ac- cessibility, and integration with other relevant systems.

Timeline:

The total duration of this project is two months. A detailed project timeline will be devel- oped as part of the Inception Phase and included in the Inception Report.

Job Requirements

The firm should demonstrate the following skills and qualifications:

• The lead consultants should have Advanced degrees in the field of Information Tech- nology and Software Engineering.
• Five years of work experience in designing and implementing new system solutions.
• In-depth knowledge of library systems and central discovery system harvesting tech- nologies.
• Ability to analyze current systems and identify areas for improvement.
• Strong understanding of data management principles and practices.
• Proficiency in relevant software tools and technologies.
• Knowledge of metadata standards and best practices for data harvesting
• Previous experience working with similar projects