JUNIOR NATIONAL STTA - DIGITAL HEALTH / RESEARCH ASSOCIATE

(E4H KP TA: Technical Assistance to the KP-HISDU Project Management Unit for Development of IT Specifications, Procurement and RFP Documentation, and Technical Support for Digital Systems Roll-out)

Programme Overview

Evidence for Health (E4H) is a Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office (FCDO)-funded programme aimed at strengthening Pakistan's healthcare system, thereby decreasing the burden of illness and saving lives. E4H provides technical assistance (TA) to the Federal, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KP), and Punjab governments, and is being implemented by Palladium along with Oxford Policy Management (OPM).

Through its flexible, embedded, and demand-driven model, E4H supports the government to achieve a resilient health system that is prepared for health emergencies, responsive to the latest evidence, and delivers equitable, quality, and efficient healthcare services. Specifically, E4H delivers TA across three outputs:

Output 1: Strengthened integrated health security, with a focus on preparing and responding to health emergencies, including pandemics.

Output 2: Strengthened evidence-based decision-making to drive health sector performance and accountability.

Output 3: Improved implementation of Universal Health Coverage, with a focus on ending preventable deaths.

Background

The Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KP) Department of Health (DoH) is establishing the KP Health Information and Service Delivery Unit (KP-HISDU) to digitise and integrate priority health information and management systems, improve access to timely information, and strengthen evidence-based management and service delivery.

The HISDU PC-I was approved in November 2025 as a three-year, PKR 989 million programme. It provides 18 Phase-1 digital modules covering central data and digitisation functions, administrative and workforce systems, medicine management, surveillance and Electronic Medical Records (EMR), together with associated IT hardware, connectivity and infrastructure.

The project is currently in the early implementation and procurement phase. The development and implementation of its digital systems is being outsourced, with procurement of an implementation firm underway and onboarding expected by November 2026. The HISDU Project Management Unit (PMU) is responsible for implementation, including procurement of the required systems, equipment, hardware and associated services.

This transition creates a critical implementation challenge: ensuring that the HISDU PMU and the newly engaged firm can translate the approved programme into an integrated, interoperable and operational digital health platform.

Targeted embedded technical assistance is therefore required to support the PMU in providing effective technical oversight and implementation management, working alongside the firm to resolve implementation challenges, maintain alignment across the 18 modules and enabling infrastructure, and support HISDU to successfully execute its mandate.

Problem Statement

As HISDU transitions into implementation, the PMU requires complementary IT and public-health expertise to strengthen its institutional capacity to guide and assure the development, integration and operationalisation of a diverse portfolio of digital health, management and information systems. This capacity is needed to work alongside the technical implementation firm to ensure that technology solutions are responsive to health-service and programme workflows, data and decision-making needs, interoperability requirements and user needs, while progressively building the PMU’s capacity to manage and sustain the HISDU ecosystem.

Goal and Objective(s)

The overall goal of is to strengthen the KP-HISDU PMU’s technical and public-health capacity to effectively oversee, coordinate and support the implementation and operationalisation of the HISDU PC-I, ensuring that digital health systems and associated IT infrastructure are integrated, fit for purpose and responsive to health-system needs.

The TA extension will achieve this by pursuing three objectives:

Objective 1: Strengthen the KP-HISDU PMU’s IT and public-health capacity to guide implementation and ensure that health-service workflows, public-health programme requirements, management processes, and data and decision-support needs are effectively reflected in the design and development of HISDU digital solutions.

Objective 2: Provide embedded technical and public-health support to the PMU and work alongside the implementation firm during system development, integration and roll-out, helping address implementation challenges and strengthening the PMU’s capacity to coordinate and manage delivery across the HISDU digital ecosystem.

Objective 3: Strengthen the PMU's technical oversight of implementation and roll-out to ensure procured solutions are delivered, tested and operationalised in line with agreed functional, clinical/public-health, interoperability, data-governance and technical requirements.

Scope of Work and Methodology

The TA team will be embedded within the KP-HISDU PMU, working alongside HISDU leadership and technical staff and coordinating closely with relevant DoH technical, programme and procurement teams. The TA will provide hands-on IT and public-health expertise to strengthen the PMU’s capacity to guide, coordinate and oversee implementation of the HISDU PC-I, while working alongside the engaged technical firm responsible for development and implementation of the digital systems.

The TA will not independently redefine approved public-health or clinical requirements. These requirements will be developed/validated with the responsible HISDU/DoH public-health, programme and technical leads and translated by the TA into system specifications, procurement requirements, contractual deliverables and acceptance criteria.

Phase 1 – Prioritisation and technical specification development: The TA team will work with the PMU to review the HISDU PC-I, implementation priorities, existing technical documentation and procurement pipeline and agree the procurements requiring priority support. For priority packages, the team will work with relevant DoH programme, public-health and technical leads to clarify requirements and develop or refine vendor-neutral technical specifications covering:

• System architecture and functionality;
• Infrastructure and connectivity;
• Interoperability and data exchange;
• Cybersecurity and data governance;
• Performance and scalability;
• Support and maintenance; and
• Implementation and operational requirements.

For relevant digital-health/EMR solutions being developed and implemented under HISDU, the TA will provide IT and public-health guidance to the PMU and implementation firm to ensure that agreed system designs and health-system requirements are appropriately reflected in system functionality, workflows, integration, testing and operationalisation. As relevant to the system/module concerned, this will include:

• Permanent citizen/patient identity architecture, with supporting identifiers used for search and verification;
• Visit-specific structured data capture for registration, follow-up, referral-out and referral-feedback;
• Appropriate workflows for one-time episodes, chronic conditions and scheduled recurring care;
• Prospective disease-surveillance and outbreak-alert functionality;
• Proactive follow-up and recall for scheduled services;
• Denominator-based calculation of priority indicators;
• Traceable referral and referral-feedback mechanisms;
• Critical-outcome closure and alert cascades;
• Rational-prescribing, medicine-safety and prescription-to-dispensing functionality; and
• Interoperability with dhis-2 and relevant vertical programme systems, including minimisation of duplicate data entry and parallel reporting.

The TA’s role will be to support the PMU in reviewing, validating and assuring these functional and public-health requirements during development and implementation, rather than developing procurement specifications or procuring hardware or IT solutions. The technical implementation firm will remain responsible for software development and implementation, while the PMU/DoH will retain ownership of programme, clinical and public-health requirements and related decisions.

Phase 2 – Implementation and roll-out support: Following onboarding of the implementation firm, the embedded TA team will support the HISDU PMU to effectively guide, oversee and assure system development, integration and roll-out. The TA will not develop or configure IT systems, undertake the implementation firm’s contractual responsibilities, or participate in procurement decision-making. Instead, it will provide specialist IT and public-health advice, technical documentation, tools and frameworks to enable the PMU to manage implementation effectively and to provide the implementation firm with sufficiently clear health-system, functional, data and interoperability requirements. Support will include:

• Developing practical implementation-assurance tools and mechanisms for the PMU, including review checklists, requirements-traceability tools, implementation dashboards, risk and issue logs, readiness criteria and mechanisms for monitoring delivery against agreed requirements;
• Providing technical and public-health documentation and advisory inputs to the PMU and implementation firm to clarify health-service workflows, programme and management requirements, data requirements, business rules, interoperability requirements and expected system functionality;
• Supporting the PMU to assess infrastructure, connectivity, facility and organisational readiness and identify dependencies that may affect system deployment;
• Supporting the PMU to review and track technical deliverables, milestones, dependencies, risks and implementation issues, and providing specialist advice on corrective actions where required;
• Providing technical guidance and review support for integration, system and user-acceptance testing, including development/review of testing frameworks, test scenarios, acceptance criteria and documentation, while testing and formal acceptance remain the responsibility of the designated HISDU/DoH teams and implementation firm;
• Supporting implementation problem-solving and coordination between the PMU, implementation firm, programme teams, health facilities and other relevant stakeholders, particularly where technical and public-health requirements intersect; and
• Supporting the PMU to assess readiness for phased deployment and operationalisation, capture lessons from initial implementation, and use these to inform subsequent roll-out and continuous system improvement.

For relevant digital-health systems, the TA will help equip the PMU with the technical documentation and assessment mechanisms needed to determine whether agreed health-service, public-health and information-system requirements have been appropriately reflected in the solutions delivered by the firm. Depending on the system concerned, these may cover patient identification, service and visit workflows, surveillance and alerts, follow-up and referral pathways, indicator and reporting requirements, medicine-management workflows, data exchange and interoperability, and reduction of avoidable duplicate data entry and parallel reporting.

For the planned EMR roll-out, the TA will support the PMU to assess and manage implementation readiness for the Phase-1 facilities identified in the PC-I—160 BHUs and 40 RHCs—rather than directly developing or deploying the EMR system. This may include readiness frameworks covering infrastructure, connectivity, users and workflows, data and interoperability, training dependencies, testing and go-live criteria, as well as mechanisms for monitoring early implementation and identifying issues requiring resolution by the implementation firm or DoH. The HISDU material confirms that Phase 1 envisages EMR-related patient-level disease and medicine tracking across 200 primary healthcare facilities.

Sustainability: Capacity Building, Institutionalisation, and/or Transition Planning

As described in the scope, capacity strengthening will be delivered through a learning-by-doing approach, with HISDU staff working alongside the TA team on implementation oversight. This will build practical capability within the PMU to manage subsequent IT procurements and roll-outs with progressively less external support.

The evaluation tools, technical standards, acceptance checklists and implementation-monitoring tools developed through the TA will be standardised for reuse and embedded within HISDU’s routine procurement and project-management processes, rather than remaining consultant products. This will establish more consistent approaches to specifying, procuring and assuring digital health investments across HISDU’s portfolio.

The TA will work through existing HISDU and DoH structures—including the PMU, technical teams, Procurement Cell and relevant committees rather than establishing parallel arrangements. Responsibilities for technical requirements, procurement and implementation oversight will therefore remain with government throughout the assignment, with the TA providing embedded support to strengthen these functions.

As HISDU capability strengthens, the TA team will progressively shift from hands-on development towards review, quality assurance and targeted technical advice. Before closure, responsibility for the tools, documentation and processes developed through the TA will be formally transitioned to designated HISDU counterparts.

Timeline and Days

The proposed LOE is 108 days from November 2026 – May 2027.

Requirement

Technical Expertise

Graduate degree in information systems, computer science, digital government, data science or related field, or a related discipline, with a minimum of 5 years of relevant professional experience.

Ability to work effectively with multidisciplinary teams and coordinate with government departments, healthcare stakeholders, suppliers, or implementing partners.

Competencies

Ability to collect, organize, review, and summarize quantitative and qualitative information. Basic understanding of health information systems, digital health platforms, electronic reporting systems, or web-based dashboards. Ability to search, review, synthesize, and document information from policies, reports, guidelines, and other credible sources.