About openIMIS

Why openIMIS?

More and more countries are enacting policies to achieve Universal Health Coverage (UHC) and Universal Social Protection (USP) for their populations. Digitalizing their health financing systems is one way to reduce delays and increase efficiency and accountability, contributing significantly to the achievement of SDG targets 1.3 and 3.7. 

Digitalization of systems allows for smoother interactions between the complex, data-intensive systems of both health and social protection systems. openIMIS is an open-source software that helps scheme operators struggling with funding for such ICT systems by offering a free alternative for the digitalization and efficient management of health financing workflows.

What is openIMIS?

Health financing schemes require the highly efficient implementation of multiple and complex business processes.

Scheme operators in low- and middle-income countries struggle to achieve efficiencies in these schemes when they lack access to appropriate digital technologies. openIMIS is an open-source software which helps manage these processes.

Building an “in-house” IT solution is resource-consuming and challenging. Commercial software packages come with expensive license fees. Being a global good, openIMIS improves and develops through the experiences and contributions of existing implementations, as well as the knowledge of experts worldwide. This exchange of ideas on software, health financing workflows and implementation experiences keeps this growing community vibrant and functional.

History

openIMIS' genesis harks back to 2012 with Swiss Development Cooperation (SDC) support to manage the Community Health Funds' (CHF) business processes in two regions of Tanzania. The Swiss Tropical and Public Health Institute (Swiss TPH), the Micro Insurance Academy (MIA), and Exact Software provided technical expertise. Intended for use in Tanzania, IMIS was adopted quickly for use in schemes in Cameroon and Nepal. In light of IMIS' success, the SDC decided to license it as open-source software under the AGPL3 license and joined with the German Development Cooperation to launch the openIMIS initiative.

openIMIS has grown organically and demonstrated how easy it is to adapt to the various types of health financing systems moving towards UHC.

 

What is the openIMIS Initiative?

The openIMIS Initiative is a group of partners who support and extend the reach of openIMIS globally. We are a dedicated community of users, development partners, implementers, software developers and academic institutions. Our shared goal is to improve health financing operations by offering a seamless exchange of data related to patients, health service providers and payers for health care.

We are continuously engaged in developing and implementing the openIMIS software through technical expertise, knowledge sharing and financial contributions. 

The openIMIS Initiative promotes global exchange around the openIMIS software and links global and local communities to their mutual benefit. Our mission is to ensure that our open source community continuously improves the software and its applicability to efficiently manage health financing schemes.

The Initiative was founded and is financed by the Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation (SDC) and the German Ministry of Economic Cooperation and Development (BMZ).

About OpenIMIS

Photo credit: Rhonwyn Cornell

How did the openIMIS Initiative grow?

The openIMIS Initiative has grown organically, in tandem with its implementations and involved partner organizations:

Timeline_2020_fr
Get to know the people!
If you would like to know which stakeholders are involved in the coordination, development, and implementation of openIMIS, go to