Senior Technical Advisor, Health Information at Clinton Health Access Initiative

Program (Division): Infectious Disease - Global Malaria

Overview

• The Clinton Health Access Initiative, Inc. (CHAI) is a global health organization committed to saving lives and reducing the burden of disease in low-and middle-income countries, while strengthening the capabilities of governments and the private sector in those countries to create and sustain high-quality health systems that can succeed without our assistance. For more information, please visit: http://www.clintonhealthaccess.org
• CHAI’s global malaria program provides direct technical and operational support to countries around the globe to strengthen their malaria programs and reduce the burden of this preventable, treatable disease. We support governments to scale up effective interventions for prevention, diagnosis, treatment, and surveillance, with the goals of sustainably reducing the number of malaria-related illnesses and deaths worldwide in the short-term and accelerating progress towards malaria elimination in the long term.
• Technology plays a key role in achieving these objectives. Building strong information systems can substantially reduce the time taken to collect and access data, improve data quality, and reduce redundancies in parallel data collection systems. Availability of higher quality information enables programs to target and tailor their programs and use resources more effectively. CHAI’s malaria and NTD program applies digital tools and systems to support effective decision-making through automated analyses, visualizations, and presentation of data in simple and actionable forms.

Overview of the Role

• CHAI is seeking a highly motivated and mission-driven individual to drive and oversee the design, development, and implementation of government technological platforms for malaria and NTD elimination and control across 20+ countries.
• S/he will manage a team of eight regional health information staff to provide effective technical leadership and support to CHAI teams and government malaria and NTD programs.
• A successful candidate will need to possess strong leadership, communication, organizational, and management skills, and be able to work independently to drive implementation.
• The candidate will work closely with CHAI technical and operational teams to design and manage implementation of context-appropriate strategies and approaches to apply information technology for malaria and NTD surveillance, case management, campaigns and vector control interventions, and program management.
• They must exhibit a passion for results, a commitment to excellence, a willingness to provide support to different tasks, and the capacity to facilitate high-level strategic discussions with a multi-cultural, multidisciplinary set of actors.
• The candidate will build and manage relationships with external institutions including technology companies, academic partners, the WHO, and government technical bodies to drive the execution of programs, stay abreast of emerging technologies, and ensure strong capacity and transition of systems to government programs.
• CHAI places great value on the following qualities in its staff: resourcefulness, responsibility, patience, tenacity, humility, independence, energy, and work ethic.

Responsibilities
Project Execution and Management (35%):

• Manage the performance and quality of health information work across all CHAI-supported countries, achieving priority goals and expected outcomes in a timely way
• Ensure a strong process of user-centered design, management of country-specific software development, thorough internal and user testing, trainings, monitoring and evaluation, and capacity building across countries and projects
• Drive effective transitions and handover of systems to malaria programs and health ministries through sustained and long-term capacity building, appropriate policies and protocols, and planning for maintenance and upgrades
• Problem solve challenges in meeting project objectives, including management of developers and operational challenges
• Manage relationships with CHAI’s other global and regional teams to ensure strong communications and timely delivery on cross-cutting project activities
• Share knowledge, lessons, and best practices between countries and regions and with other teams at CHAI, including developing templates, guidelines, and other material for successful project execution.

People and Team Management (25%):

• Manage and support the work of a team of heath informatics staff (including three direct reports) supporting malaria and NTD related technology implementations in sub-Saharan Africa, Southeast Asia, Central America, and Hispaniola
• Develop and mentor staff, provide guidance, constructive feedback, and implement strategies to troubleshoot areas of weakness
• Make and recommend hiring decisions, compensation and promotion adjustments, and decisions on team structure
• Develop onboarding approaches and material for the health informatics team; support onboarding and recruitment of new CHAI staff across malaria and NTD teams
• Set priorities for team to ensure task completion; coordinate work activities with technical malaria teams, regional, and country teams.

Vision and Strategy (15%):

• Serve as a technical advisor for health informatics project and strategy for malaria and NTD technical teams, regional teams, and senior leadership
• Develop and communicate a coherent vision for malaria information systems within and across countries, and influence internal and external stakeholders and initiatives to drive vision forward
• Develop strategies on project objectives and appropriate activities for new projects and grants; update and drive health informatics team strategy, and operationalize identified approach and activities
• Assess and make recommendations for malaria technologies and information systems, including process flows, system architecture, and hardware used by Ministries of Health.

Financial Management and Reporting (15%):

• Review and provide input to the budgeting process, including review of expenditures and decisions on reallocating funds
• Support donor reporting, coordinating across team members and with leadership to provide appropriate updates and reports on activities
• Contribute to development of proposals for new projects and grants.

Other (10%):

• Support synthesis and dissemination of findings both internally and externally through high-quality presentations, reports, and publications
• Additional responsibilities as needed.

Qualifications

• Master's Degree in relevant field (Information Systems, Computer Science, Medical Engineering etc.) required or Bachelor’s Degree with equivalent experience
• At least seven years of work experience with increasing levels of responsibility and leadership in roles designing and delivering technology solutions
• Experience living or working in resource-limited countries
• Experience managing and mentoring teams, particularly remote teams
• Proven experience in implementing technology-based solutions with users, preferably for disease surveillance and in low and middle income countries
• Languages: SQL, JavaScript, html, java, php, python preferred; knowledge of and experience working with DHIS2 preferred
• Experience working on integration of information management systems
• Familiarity with emerging technologies for data collection and reporting, data integration, and data visualization and analysis.
• Proficiency in Access, Microsoft Word, Excel, PowerPoint
• Ability to be effective, calm, and flexible in high-pressure situations, to handle multiple tasks simultaneously and to effectively prioritize
• Ability to communicate technical concepts effectively with people of varied professional and cultural backgrounds
• Exceptional problem-solving solving skills and analytical capabilities; Experience in strategy development, planning, and project implementation
• Excellent written and oral communication skills, and skill in making persuasive presentations and written reports
• Ability to travel up to 40% of the year.

Advantages:

• Knowledge of malaria or other global infectious diseases; and understanding of disease surveillance (including surveillance platforms) with knowledge of global health issues
• Experience in data management (including managing databases) and data analysis
• Experience in system administration, server set up, and hardware management.

Additional Location Description:

• This position has flexibility to be based in another CHAI program country, pending CHAI country leadership approval