Вакансія: Telemedicine and eHealth Specialist – Consultant

1. Scope of work

The Local Health System Sustainability (LHSS) Ukraine activity works to mitigate corruption and strengthen governance of the healthcare system by developing the capacity of the Ministry of Health (MOH) and the eHealth State Enterprise. It aims to support the Government of Ukraine (GOU) to put in place the foundation for institutional arrangements and capacity to govern and ensure telemedicine is safely and sustainably offered to the population. The project further supports the rapid and rational scale up of telemedicine capacity in the context of the Russian invasion, and to help the Government of Ukraine to eventually integrate emergency telemedicine support investments into the health system.

Telemedicine services have grown rapidly in recent years because of the COVID-19 pandemic and, with the onset of Russia’s illegal invasion, have become an essential tool to maintain access to healthcare. To date, the growth of telemedicine use has been primarily private-sector-driven, regulations around telemedicine services are fragmented, and governmental roles and responsibilities remain unclear. The LHSS team has worked closely with the MoH, NHSU and eHealth State Enterprise and implementing partners to develop a strategic vision/concept note for the telemedicine development in Ukraine as well as an implementation plan to serve as a guide that prioritizes and plans timing for key action steps on telemedicine development.

To support implementation of technical activities to develop telemedicine in Ukraine, the LHSS project seeks to hire a telemedicine and eHealth specialist consultant. This consultant will lead a team of LHSS-selected consultants, including the Specialist in Telemedicine Business Processes consultant, to complete activities within the Software Development Life Cycle. The consultant will closely cooperate with the LHSS Ukraine team, and the Ministry of Health of Ukraine, the eHealth State Enterprise, and NHSU. The consultant is under the direct supervision of the Chief of Party. Specifically, the consultant will: 

Task 1:  Oversee the creation and approval of a policy paper on a telemedicine enabling environment. The consultant will lead a team of consultants to analyze telemedicine solutions, current functional processes of the central database of the electronic healthcare system, and examples of telemedicine implementation. Under the telemedicine and eHealth specialist consultant’s supervision, the team will determine the requirements for the development of telemedicine solutions for Ukraine’s electronic healthcare system. The consultant will ensure the quality of the findings and be responsible for the completion of a policy paper. This paper will identify the policies that need to be revised in order to enforce the determined technical requirements. The consultant will first draft an annotated outline for LHSS to approve before moving to the final paper. Key target audiences for this paper include those at the Deputy Minister level, technical specialists from the SOE eHealth, the NHSU, etc.

Expected deliverables: 

• Annotated outline of paper (or PowerPoint Slide outlining key elements of paper) (by April 21, 2023)
• Policy paper on the Teleconsultation and Telediagnostics projects (by April 30, 2023).

Tentative Dates and Estimated LOE: 

• The tentative dates for this task are April 17, 2023 – April 30, 2023
• Anticipated LOE: 5 days

Task 2: Oversee the creation of an action plan and implementation schedule to develop the enabling environment. The consultant will oversee the team of consultants to prepare an action plan and implementation schedule for the enabling environment and prepare and update any other documents related to telemedicine project management, including resource plans, budget plans, communication plans, and risk/stakeholder matrices.

Expected deliverables: 

• Master plan and implementation schedule for development of telemedicine enabling environment (by May 12, 2023).

Tentative Dates and Estimated LOE: 

• The tentative dates for this task are April 17, 2023 – May 12, 2023
• Anticipated LOE: 5 days

Task 3: Oversee development of the Terms of Reference (ToR) for enabling environment. The consultant will supervise a team of consultants to develop the ToR by translating algorithms into technical language, detailing the technical requirements for the enabling environment to be integrated into the eHealth system in a secure manner, and designing solutions for identified gaps. LHSS will provide guidance on what elements must be included in the ToR. The consultant will provide technical support, monitor project status, and ensure quality. The consultant will also ensure adherence to existing SDLC requirements and deadlines for technical documentation and propose ways to improve SDLC processes.

Expected deliverables: 

• Terms of Reference for technical enabling environment  (by July 31, 2023).
• One to four page summary of ToR for lay audiences (by July 31, 2023)

Tentative Dates and Estimated LOE: 

• The tentative dates for this task are April 30, 2023 – July 31, 2023 
• Anticipated LOE: 29 days

Task 4: Organize the discussion and approval process of the Terms of Reference for enabling environment. The consultant will provide recommendations regarding the development of interaction mechanisms between telemedicine solutions, information and communication systems, and the electronic health care system. Oversee creation of a summary of barriers to enabling environment implementation identified by the private sector and recommendations to mitigate and/or resolve them. The consultant will supervise other consultants to provide these recommendations. 

Expected deliverables: 

• List of changes to the final document of the Terms of Reference (by August 31, 2023).
• List of recommendations regarding the development of interaction mechanisms between telemedicine solutions, information and communication systems, and the electronic health care system (by September 30, 2023).
• Summary of barriers to enabling environment implementation identified by private sector and recommendations to mitigate and/or resolve them (by September 30, 2023).

Tentative Dates and Estimated LOE: 

• The tentative dates for this task are July 1, 2023 – September 30, 2023 
• Anticipated LOE: 21 days 

Task 5: Provide weekly updates and complete a Short-Term Consultant Technical Assistance Report within final month of the consultancy. Template for report will be given within 30 days of consultancy start.  

Expected deliverables: 

• Weekly updates (bulleted email to COP) on task performance and supporting documents as required.
• Short-term technical assistance report including all technical deliverables as attachments (by September 30, 2023).  

Tentative Dates and Estimated LOE: 

• The tentative dates for this task are September 1, 2023 – September 30, 2023
• Anticipated LOE: up to 2 days  

2. Assumptions, implementation period, expected level of effort (LOE), reporting, minimum requirements and travel

Assumptions: This contract is subject to the ability of the government and development partners to work with LHSS Ukraine, given the ongoing war with Russia, any restrictions related to COVID-19, and USAID’s ability to obtain approval from the Ministry of Health for work and activities.

Reporting: The consultant will report to the LHSS Ukraine Chief of Party.

Location: The consultant will initiate the work remotely. The team will consider travel needs on an ongoing basis and update this agreement if travel is agreed upon.

Security: Upon contracting, the consultant will be oriented to the LHSS Field Security Plan by the Security Focal Point, including the Safe Working Framework. The consultant will be required to comply with all project security measures and to prioritize their personal safety above all else.

Performance Period: The consultant period of performance begins on April 17, 2023 and ends on September 30, 2023 for 62  LOE days.

Minimum requirements: 

• 3 years of work experience in the field of IT project management for the development of enterprise software products and the implementation of software on the side of the customer/developer;
• Experience in:
  - Field of system analysis, development and integration of IT systems in medicine;
  - Writing technical specifications (ToRs or SRS) for IT projects;
  - Scrum, Kanban, Waterfall;
  - Task management systems (JIRA, Redmine, Git) and documentation management (Confluence, MS Project, etc.);
  - Describing and using APIs, understanding the principles of REST, SOAP;
  - Modeling business processes (UML, BPMN);
• Knowledge of:
  - Modeling and created business processes, algorithms, models, diagrams, schemes, prototypes, technical and conceptual documents in the field of information technologies;
  - Field of information security and requirements of complex information protection systems;
  - SDLC processes;
• Knowledge of PRINCE2, PMBoK standards is desirable;
• Desirable to have a high-level understanding of the processes of the electronic healthcare system of Ukraine, the functioning of medical information systems and specialized telemedicine solutions, etc.;
• Knowledge of the English language needed to read and understand technical documentation; develop technical specifications for IT specialists; and perform translation of the necessary parts of the documentation from Ukrainian into English;
• Confident command of MS Office (Word, Excel, PowerPoint, etc.), Google tools.

Differently abled people are highly encouraged to apply. This includes people classified as “Persons with disabilities” according to the GOU. Please use the following link to apply: https://egpy.fa.us2.oraclecloud.com/hcmUI/CandidateExperience/en/sites/JoinAbt/job/103376