BETTEReHEALTH — Better e-health for better health — is a European-African project focused on supporting the deployment of e-health in low- and lower-middle-income countries (LLMICs) in Africa. The project aims to contribute to better, more accessible, and more efficient health and care services by strengthening the coordination, evidence base, partnerships, policies, and technical foundations needed for successful e-health implementation.
The project uses a bottom-up, evidence-based and holistic approach, bringing together African and European partners with expertise across health, technology, research, policy, and implementation. It establishes four regional hubs in Tunisia, Ghana, Ethiopia, and Malawi to strengthen regional collaboration, networking, knowledge sharing, and dissemination of project activities and outputs.

BETTEReHEALTH is a 24-month project, starting on 1 January 2021, under the European Commission's H2020 programme and the topic “Supporting deployment of eHealth in low and lower middle income countries in Africa for better health outcomes.”

The problem

Across Africa, e-health technologies and digital health solutions are developing rapidly, but successful deployment depends on more than technology alone. Countries need appropriate policies, sustainable infrastructure, skilled and engaged stakeholders, evidence-based decision-making, interoperability, and supportive regulatory and financing environments.

E-health programmes can fail to achieve their intended impact when they are not adapted to country needs, when users and stakeholders are not sufficiently involved, or when technical and policy environments are not prepared to support sustainable implementation.

BETTEReHEALTH therefore focuses on four interconnected factors that influence successful e-health deployment:

Existing resources and evidence
Human factors
Technical factors
Public policy factors

The project recognizes that successful e-health policy-making requires evidence and existing resources to be used effectively while also addressing stakeholder participation, technical infrastructure and standards, regulatory frameworks, financing, and sustainability.

The response

BETTEReHEALTH brings together African and European e-health stakeholders to coordinate existing initiatives, strengthen partnerships, generate and share evidence, and support the development of national and regional e-health policies and implementation strategies.

The project establishes four regional hubs:

Northern Africa: Tunisia
Western Africa: Ghana
Central and Eastern Africa: Ethiopia
Southern Africa: Malawi

The hubs support coordination, networking, data and information collection, stakeholder engagement, workshops, and dissemination of project results.

The project also develops open-access registries documenting existing e-health solutions and e-health policies in African countries. These resources are intended to identify best practices, lessons learned, and evidence that can inform future e-health policy and implementation.

How it works

BETTEReHEALTH works through seven interconnected areas:

1. Research and evidence

The project collects and maps existing evidence, resources, e-health solutions, and national and regional e-health policies to identify best practices and lessons learned.

2. Human factors

The project identifies and engages relevant stakeholders, strengthens cooperation and partnerships, promotes user-centred approaches, and creates opportunities for stakeholders to participate in e-health deployment.

3. Technical factors

The project examines requirements for sustainable and trustworthy infrastructure, reviews existing e-health standards, supports standardization, and promotes interoperability and connections with relevant initiatives.

4. Public policy factors

The project works with national governments to understand policy needs, regulatory environments, financing capacity, and the conditions required for sustainable e-health programmes.

5. National implementation

Knowledge from the evidence and policy registries, together with findings on human, technical, and policy factors, is used to develop an e-health deployment roadmap and strategic implementation plans for the participating countries.

6. Communication and dissemination

The project organizes seminars, webinars, regional workshops, international workshops, conferences, publications, and other communication activities to share knowledge and engage stakeholders.

7. European-African cooperation

The project promotes cooperation and networking between European and African stakeholders in e-health through international workshops and collaborative activities.

CDHi's role

The University of Gondar (UoG) is a core partner in BETTEReHEALTH and leads the project's Technical Factors Work Package (WP4). The project workplan identifies UoG as the lead beneficiary for WP4, which focuses on technical factors related to successful e-health deployment.

Through its e-health expertise, the University of Gondar contributes to the project's technical and implementation activities. The project document highlights the University's E-health Lab Ethiopia as a centre of excellence working with the Federal Ministry of Health to develop, adopt, evaluate, and support innovative health information technologies and conduct embedded research on health information technologies and health-system strengthening.

UoG's contributions include:

Leading the Technical Factors Work Package (WP4);
Supporting the assessment and synthesis of technical requirements for successful e-health deployment;
Contributing to work on e-health standards and interoperability;
Sharing experience from Ethiopia's digital health and health information systems environment;
Contributing expertise on sustainable and trustworthy technical infrastructure;
Supporting knowledge exchange between African and European partners; and
Contributing to the development of evidence and recommendations that can inform e-health policies and implementation.

The project also identifies UoG's existing work on Health Information Exchange Policy and Standards for African Union Member States, including legal frameworks, data-use agreements, privacy and security, interoperability, communication, semantic and technical interoperability, profile exchange, and security, as relevant input to BETTEReHEALTH's technical work.

BETTEReHEALTH

Interested in This Project?