TABLE 1.

MediCapt Development Process Compared With Principles for Digital Development Benchmarks

Principles for Digital Development16MediCapt Development Process
Design with the user
Develop context-appropriate solutions informed by user needs
Include all user groups in planning, development, implementation, and assessment
Develop projects in incremental and iterative manner
Design solutions that learn from and enhance existing workflows, and plan for organizational adaptation
Ensure solutions are sensitive to, and useful for, the most marginalized populations: women, children, those with disabilities, and those affected by conflict and disaster
Understand the ecosystem
Participate in networks and communities of like-minded practitioners
Align existing technological, legal, and regulatory policies
Design for scale
Design for scale from the start, and assess and mitigate dependencies that might limit ability to scale
Employ a systems approach to design, considering implications of design beyond an immediate project
Be replicable and customizable in other countries and contextsPlanned
Demonstrate impact before scaling a solutionIn process
Analyze all technology choices through the lens of national and regional scale
Factor in partnerships from the beginning, and start early negotiations
Build for sustainability
Plan for sustainability from the start, including planning for long-term financial healthIn process
Utilize and invest in local communities and developers by default, and help catalyze their growthNot done
Engage with local governments to ensure integration into national strategy, and identify high-level government advocates
Be data driven
Design projects so that impact can be measured at discrete milestones with a focus on outcomes rather than outputsIn process
Evaluation innovative solutions and areas where there are gaps in data and evidence
Use real-time information to monitor and inform management decisions at all levelsPlanned for future
When possible, leverage data as a by-product of user actions and transactions for assessmentPlanned for future
Use open data, open standards, open source, open innovation
Adopt and expand existing open standardsPartially done
Open data and functionalities, and expose them in documented APIs
Invest in software as a public good
Develop software to be open source by default with the code made available in public repositories and supported through developer communitiesPlanned for future
Reuse and improve
Use, modify, and extend existing tools, platforms, and frameworks when possible
Develop in modular ways favoring approaches that are interoperable over those that are monolithic by design
Address privacy and security
Assess and mitigate risks to the security of users and their data
Consider the context and needs for privacy of personally identifiable information when designing solutions and mitigate accordingly
Ensure equity and fairness in co-creation, and protect the best interests of the end-users
Be collaborative
Engage diverse expertise across disciplines and industries at all stages
Work across sector silos to create coordinated and more holistic approachesIn progress
Document work, results, processes, and best practices, and share them widely
Publish materials under a creative commons license by default, with strong rationale if another licensing approach is taken
  • Abbreviation: API, application programming interface.