Once again, Digital Square will follow an open application process. Initial Concept Notes are due December 1, 2021.
OpenMRS has a good track record with Digital Square: since 2019, we’ve led two Digital Square awards (Notice D: PLIR, Notice E0: Shelf Readiness for Dictionary Management) and been a sub-contractor on two additional awards (Notice C: Improving QA Tools & Processes, Notice E0: Improving QA for Shelf Readiness and Interoperability), worth a combined total of $237k.
We’d like to find out if there are any members or organizations in the community who are interested in submitting a proposal in any of these three areas with us. We can offer support in any way to get the proposal submitted: brainstorm ideas and approaches, assisting with narratives, thinking through budgets, etc.
@Mekom would definitely like to co-apply to F0. We anticipate that this ANC DAK could be translated in our (new) lingo as openmrs-package-anc (cc @burke)
I have already reviewed the WHO annexes and while there are challenges (notably the CDS part), the overall scope fits well IMO. And while this is not thankfully scoped in and required by F0, we have at least two supported projects that could directly benefit from implementing this package (and at the very least could help UX design it.)
I agree with @jdick and @mksd that the ANC DAK has come along at an opportune time as we’re starting to get serious about what packaging looks like. It seems like it would be a shame to waste such a perfect opportunity to build something of value for the community.
Partners In Health recently deployed Ob/Gyn in Haiti with good success. As always, we are happy to share all our code. Labor/Partogram is still needed. Anything to further that work would be most helpful. Especially since I think we’ll use MFE (V3).
Fantastic to see not only the interest in using this opportunity to work on an ANC package but in collaborating with us on a proposal!
Here are some suggested next steps to help us move forward with a concept note for DS Notice F0: Implementing the DAK for ANC:
Draft Concept Note
I’ve set up a Google Doc with the Digital Square concept note template.
Here are links to the Notice D, and Notice E0 concept notes in case you’re interested in seeing what past submissions have looked like.
Brainstorming/Writing
We can use a Talk thread and/or the #strategy-operations Slack channel for asynchronous brainstorming & discussion.
It has also been helpful to have a couple of working sessions, one early on in the process and one to review a draft prior to submission. To help us find a time for these sessions, please share your availability using this Doodle poll:
@jdick et al, @jamlung could be a great asset to this effort, given his experience with creating IG’s in maternal/child health for the WHO, familiarity with FHIR, direct experience with OCL, and interest in getting more involved with OpenMRS.
I didn’t see any chatter about this in #strategy-operations. Are there conversations going on about planning a Notice F0 proposal? If so, could someone loop myself and @jamlung into them?
And it looks like the best time for a working session this week is Friday, November 19 at 10:30pm IST | 8pm Nairobi | 7pm Cape Town | 5pm UTC | 12pm Boston | 9am Seattle.
A lot has happened this week. In addition to OMRS21, OpenMRS contributed to three concept notes for Notice F that were submitted on Wednesday, December 1:
Following the concept note review, Digital Square (comprised of the technical and operational team representatives) assesses concept notes to ensure alignment with the initiative vision and funding objectives identified in the open application process. Digital Square eliminates concept notes that are not strategically aligned with the above.
Digital Square identifies a set of short-listed concept notes based on the open application process criteria and emails applicants who are eligible to advance to the application phase.
We should hear if our applications go on to the next phase in a couple of weeks.
Great news, everyone! At least two of our concept notes are moving to the next stage of the application process. Here’s the general feedback:
A few general comments to consider when developing the full applications:
Definition of Global Goods: we call this out explicitly and as such, please ensure that your full application is clear on how you meet this definition. If you are using software, please identify the license and links to source code, etc.
Scale and deployment: it is important to be clear to highlight your “scale” of deployment for the PRC and please ensure you talk to that in the full application.
All applications must align to the Instant OpenHIE deployment approach and would ask that you address that directly in the application.
As a community, we ask that you explicitly call out the various communities you are going to collaborate in during the course of the proposed project (be it a particular OpenHIE community or a particular tool community, etc.).
It will be important that the full applications identify risks to the project and provide mitigation strategies. If there are no risks, then we ask that it is called out explicitly.
For all applications, it is important to remember that this funding is not to support implementation of projects (e.g. roll out, etc.) but to support the advancement of the technology and features as per Notice F0/F1/F2.
Digital Health Atlas (DHA) registration: thank you to those who have your registrations in the DHA. Please note that the DHA has updated its process to have you self-register. For teams that emailed the address found in the concept note, we ask that you please undertake a self-registration. As such, please create an account and register a project and within that project you can register your software as in-use.
Here’s what happens next:
Between now and December 29th: Work on a first draft of our full Technical Applications.
December 30-January 7: DS and others get to comment on our draft Technical Applications.
January 3-7: Flesh out our consortium roles/responsibilities, budget, and budget narrative
January 8-12: Finalize our full applications
I’ll set up and share Google docs for the technical applications this afternoon. Have a quick question or want to chat about something? Check out our #strategy-operations Slack channel.
(cc 
now!