About us
© UNICEF/UN0589450/Hoang
© UNICEF/UN0589450/Hoang
Who we are
The Digital Health Centre of Excellence (DICE) is a multi-agency consortium co-led by the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) and the World Health Organization (WHO). It was established in 2021 as the field-facing support mechanism for UNICEF’s Digital Health & Information Systems unit and WHO’s Digital Health and Innovation Department.
DICE works to improve donor coordination, ensure alignment with the Digital Investment Principles, guide investments into Digital Public Goods and Global Goods, and provide targeted technical assistance and quality assurance to countries.
The centre works through existing UNICEF and WHO regional and country structures, bolstering the capacity to identify, develop, and scale digital solutions in support of national health priorities. Its goal is to make health services, such as vaccines, maternal and child health, and nutrition, more equitable and attainable through a data-driven approach and by harnessing the power of sustainable and scalable digital health solutions.
How we work
DICE provides coordinated technical assistance to countries to support the sustainable and scalable deployment of carefully chosen and mature digital health solutions to issues such as the planning and distribution of medicines and vaccines, service delivery and supply management, epidemiological surveillance and case detection, monitoring coverage of service uptake, training of health workers, and others.
DICE can also support coordination between donors and development partners at the regional and global levels. Although DICE is not a funding mechanism, it can also align with donor agencies and support governments to identify and apply for funding using costed investment cases (e.g. via global or other in-country resources). DICE's technical assistance is provided through existing regional and country structures and a roster of technical experts.
Areas of work
Coordinates investments into Digital Public Goods for Health and collaborates with donor agencies and funders to identify and apply for digital health funding
Strengthens national Digital Health Strategies and Policies and accompanying governance structures and processes
Incorporates digital health into Health Sector Development Plans, National Deployment and Vaccine Plans (NDVPs), and other key national strategies
Supports the development of system requirements, implementation plans and digital health platforms and tools
Ecosystem mapping, digital readiness assessments, prioritization and development of business / investment cases
Enterprise planning, including enterprise architecture, adoption of standards, integration of digital tools within national health information exchanges
Our priority areas
Service delivery planning
Supporting geographical information systems, digital microplanning, health facilities registries and overall planning
Vaccination status
Finding, tracking, and recording immunizations, managing vaccination records
Counterfeit detection
Facilitating digital solutions to track, report and reduce falsified and counterfeit medicines and development of counterfeit incidents reporting system.
Frontier tech
Developing and implementing digital health interventions around AI, Internet of Things (IoT), blockchain and more
Standards & Interoperability
Ensuring systems interoperability, enabling health information mediators, producing guidelines
Remote healthworker training
Conducting remote healthworker learning, managing health workforce registries, mass messaging, infodemic management, awareness-raising
Coverage monitoring
Organizing and developing data visualization, vaccination cards and certificates
Health service delivery
Vaccination registration and prioritization, decision support, patient management, records, registries, telemedicine, management information systems
...and more
Supporting leadership and governance, change management, legislation, policy, compliance, budgeting and health financing
Our principles
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Demand-driven: Prioritizing country support that aligns with needs outlined in the National Deployment and Vaccination Plans (NDVPs) and digital health plans
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Agile: Establishing contracting mechanisms with approved vendors and technical experts to allow for a rapid response to country priorities
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Sustainable: Supporting governments to use existing systems and resources to deploy cost-effective digital solutions, which later can be expanded and integrated into the health management information system.
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Secure: Safeguarding the global principles of digital development by only endorsing digital platforms that apply acceptable security standards for patient privacy and cyber security.
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Capacity building: Providing guidance and technical assistance to governments on digital health investments, including vendor selection, platform set-up, training and maintenance
Our Members
Work with us
DICE is working through a roster of consultants, volunteers and partner agencies to respond to country requests.
If you would like to get involved or support in other ways, reach out to us at contact@digitalhealthcoe.org with the subject line “SUPPORT” with the services you are offering.