SSA related aspects | Motivation/ description |
---|---|
Regulations and standards | Compliance to specific regulations and standards mandatory in health industry. |
Regulatory authorities | For example, in SA’s public health sector, the NDoH is a key stakeholder in the ecosystem. Platform owners would need to consider such authorities if they want access to government and public hospitals. |
Building trust | Trust may need to be built with users where technology is still unfamiliar. Within local authorities there might also be a sense of scepticism due to several similar initiatives that failed. |
EHRs and EMRs | The platform might need access or enable use of existing EHRs or EMRs. These can be non-existent or hard to access in these contexts. |
Data silos | There are currently no clear interoperability standards for this context and subsequently there are several silos of data that would require specialised effort to access. |
Integration and interoperability | Integration and interoperability with systems in this context may be particularly difficult as they are often outdated and undefined. |
Security and privacy | In SA, the Protection of Personal Information (PoPI) Act is a fundamental part of its citizens. Effort should be taken into keeping data, such as HIV statuses, secure and private whilst complying with the Act. |
Health and technology education | The end users, particularly in rural areas, may not be digitally literate. These end-users are often uneducated on health-related issues. This affects adoption and sustained use. |
Sustainability | Financial sustainability, as well as adoption and sustained use by the end users are particularly challenging in developing environments. |
Available devices | Some end users may only have access to very simple and old mobile devices, therefore resulting in limitations and constraints in the design process. |
Adoption | As technology may not be familiar for all, adoption might be slow and require support and active change management. |
Data availability and cost | In rural areas the end users may have limited connectivity and may not be able to afford mobile data. This has an effect on back-ups, sending and storing of data. Often end-users work with pay-as-you-go data and will reject the app if is it costs anything at all. |
Data traffic | Heavy data traffic may prevent apps from working sufficiently, therefore implicating the design. |