Director, Digital Health and Informatics

This role was posted on December 12, 2024. Please note that we will review applications on a rolling basis.

The Role

At Last Mile Health (LMH), we make bold commitments that inspire innovation. Do you have demonstrated experience in developing cost-effective, country-level digital health interventions for hard-to-reach, resource-limited communities to promote digital transformation? If so, you may be our next Director, Digital Health and Informatics located in Accra, Ghana.

The Director, Digital Health and Informatics will develop LMH’s digital health vision, and approach, and oversee the execution of the Health System Strengthening (HSS) Team’s digital health activities in Ethiopia, Liberia, Malawi, Sierra Leone, and for our Africa Frontline First initiative. With the objective of improving the quality and efficiency of community health service delivery, Last Mile Health’s Global Digital Health practice works closely with country program teams to support ministries of health in designing and deploying digital health (DH) solutions for community health programs. This can include work across all aspects of the project and design cycle including ICT strategy setting, co-design of health software, user feedback, and deployment and maintenance. LMH works closely with ministries to effectively coordinate DH partners to align with ministry strategic priorities for enhanced solution sustainability.

The Director, Digital Health & Informatics will lead Last Mile Health’s Digital Health practice and be a part of the Health System Strengthening (HSS) team. This role will develop LMH’s digital health vision, approach, and oversee the execution of the HSS Team’s digital health activities. The position will oversee the digital health practice’s strategy, workplan, budget, and support fundraising, partnerships, and business development. Along with the Digital Health Manager (DH Manager), he/she will provide technical leadership for the full software product development cycle including conceptualization, design, and quality assurance of digital health-related innovations that are fit for purpose for remote communities. This position will also serve as LMH’s lead over digital health activities and be responsible for providing or sourcing appropriate technical input into digital health activities across LMH’s programs and projects.  

The Director, Digital Health & Informatics will liaise with the Global Monitoring, Evaluation, Research & Learning (GMERL) Department to support the development of in-house digital information systems. He/she will also liaise with multiple teams to drive measurement approaches, design, and fundraise for digital interventions’ implementation and evaluation to generate evidence on digital tools and to test and improve digital health interventions and outcomes. 

This role is Hybrid in Accra, Ghana and is open to both national and international candidates located in or willing to relocation to Ghana.

What you’ll do

Oversight, Management, and Strategy

• Oversee the Global Digital Health practice and team mission, vision, operational plan, and budget management. 
• Foster team cohesiveness and oversee project management systems and knowledge management while working in collaboration with the Manager, Digital Health. 
• Lead collaboration and coordination across LMH teams, ensuring effective teamwork and alignment of efforts. 
• Work as part of the Health Systems Strengthening team to support technical initiatives. Collaborate with the Chief Technical Officer and Managing Director of Global Monitoring, Evaluation, Research, and Learning to design and improve digital health interventions across LMH. 
• Contribute to the development of policies and best practices related to technology and data at LMH, ensuring they align with organizational goals.

Government,  Stakeholder Collaboration, and Technical Assistance

• Strengthen LMH’s digital health partnerships with governments and relevant partners to enhance policies and systems that strengthen technologies and practices to enhance the quality of community health services.
• Support and strengthen in-country DH teams in their work with Ministries of Health to develop, refine, and execute their vision for nationwide digital health deployments. These interventions will focus on digital information systems, performance management, and learning solutions for CHWs. 
• Provide technical assistance to LMH program teams and surge support as requested in engaging/supporting the Ministry of Health to develop deployment procedures, sustainable financing plans, and governance structures for digital health. 
• Drive the continuous improvement of national digital health interventions by providing hands-on technical advice, and coordinating feedback from end-users, experts, and governments.
• Design and support modifications to various digital health technologies with a preference for public good digital solutions that function within last-mile environments. 
• Oversee the full gamut of software product cycle management including drafting of technical requirements, execution of engineering contracts, code development, and quality assurance. 
• Ensure that software modifications are well documented in appropriate repositories (GitHub and community forums) and where applicable, maintained as public goods. 

Partnerships and Advocacy

• Lead and conduct advocacy for higher quality, scale, and government ownership of digital health tools for community health workers in last mile communities. 
• Develop partnerships with key digital health actors including hardware providers, software development firms, business consultancies, and academic institutions. 
• Participate in business development efforts including identifying funding and partnership opportunities for digital health solutions (including opportunities for research and evaluation of digital solutions); designing projects and activities in response to funding opportunities and in collaboration with other LMH teams; provide subject matter expertise (including writing and budgeting) for proposal development.
• Support monitoring, operational research, and learning initiatives to identify and document best practices in digital health and communicate LMH’s digital health work globally. 
• Publicize LMH’s digital health work in relevant formats including publishing blogs and in peer-reviewed journals as appropriate. 
• Actively participate and represent LMH’s digital health practice in critical digital health conferences globally.

Technical Support and Capacity Building

• Work with the Manager, Digital Health to oversee the Digital Health Department’s product cycle management of digital health technologies for community health work. 
• Support the ongoing development and maintenance of LMH’s internal Data Portal (LMD 2.0),  Develop and maintain the department’s digital health strategy, standard operating procedures, and DH roadmaps. 
• Develop the technical skills of the team in-house, promoting continuous learning and adaptation of relevant technologies. 
• Provide expert guidance on digital health technologies, machine learning/AI, data security, and system integration. 
• Enhance local capacities in digital health through targeted training and links to development programs. 
• Develop digital health organisational structure and ensure recruitment of adequate DH team members. 

What You'll Bring

• Progressive years of experience in providing high-level support for digital health and/or international development projects, managing applied technology projects and/or providing strategic direction to applied technology projects in resource constrained settings.
• Demonstrated years of experience in agile project management for software development.
• Progressive years of management experience in low and middle-income countries (LMICs) with a background in community health work preferred
• Demonstrated experience in working with government policymakers (experience with LMIC governments preferred).
• Master’s degree in Computer Science, Information Technology, Informatics, Public Health, Biostatistics or in a relevant field.

You’ll Impress Us If

• Strong leadership and project management skills, with the ability to manage cross-cultural teams.
• Ability to balance work across multiple teams and projects. Ability to translate strategic plans into actionable goals for performance and growth. 
• Experience deploying and delivering national digital health systems.
• Understanding of community health work programs and knowledge of best practices in deploying technology-based solutions in remote environments. Strong understanding of the ICT4D landscape and best practices, specifically digital health, digital education, and application of digital health tools. 
• Strong technical writing skills including the ability to produce high quality grant proposals as well as technical requirements for third-party software developers. 
• Experience deploying digital health information system solutions in LMICs (CHT, DHIS2, OpenMRS, OpenSRP, ODK Collect, CommCare) 
• Strong data mechanics and analysis abilities (experience with Python, MySQL, DHIS2, Superset, Tableau, and Stata).
• Agile Software development life cycle experience, including CI/CD and DevOps approaches 
• Experience in managing cloud infrastructure, such as AWS or GCP will be useful
• Experience with data and knowledge management. 
• Experience with AI/ machine learning will be useful 

Compensation Information

At Last Mile Health, we strive to reward our employees equitably and transparently. This means that we pay our employees based on a clear and consistent methodology and without regard to their identity or personal relationships. We have made this model fully transparent so that everyone has access to all information related to compensation. We hope this helps you better understand Last Mile Health’s values and commitments to our employees. We look forward to answering any questions you may have during the hiring process.

Before applying to this role, please take a moment to learn more about our approach to compensation and how compensation works in each of the countries where we operate. Please find the link to our compensation model and benefits overview below:

OVERVIEW OF LAST MILE HEALTH’S COMPENSATION MODEL

Compensation for this position: 

The Band for this position: SLB-5

The salary range for this role is $90,966- $113,018 USD dependent upon experience doing an equivalent role. Please note that this compensation is subject to statutory taxes.
For more information about benefits for International staff, kindly refer to page 21 of Last Mile Health Compensation Model. For National staff kindly refer to the Ghana benefits overview.

About Last Mile Health

Last Mile Health partners with governments to design, scale, strengthen, and sustain high-quality community health systems, which empower teams of community and frontline health workers to bring life-saving primary healthcare to the world’s most remote communities. LMH is a registered 501(c)3 non-profit organization. For more information, visit www.lastmilehealth.org.

We are an equal-opportunity employer and value diversity at LMH. We do not discriminate on the basis of race, religion, colour, national origin, gender, sexual orientation, age, marital status, veteran status, or disability status.