Table 2.
The distribution of subindicator mean scores among the 3 core indicators (global utility, community support, and software maturity) for Surveillance Outbreak Response Management and Analysis System development from November 2017 to October 2019.
| Core indicatora | Score | Status of SORMASb | |||
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|
2017 | 2018 | 2019 | ||
| Global utility | 6 | 9 | 10 | N/Ac | |
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|
Country utilization | 1 | 1 | 1 | SORMAS has been fully established for all epidemic-prone diseases in 15 federal states (including the federal capital), 287 local government areas, 37 health facilities, and approximately 700 users covering 75 million population (November 2017) |
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|
Country strategy | 0 | 1 | 1 | SORMAS has now been fully integrated into the revised technical guidelines of the Integrated Disease Surveillance and Response strategy and eHealth framework (September 2019) |
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|
Digital health interventions | −1 | 1 | 1 | SORMAS can be configured and deployed without significant customizations or configuration (July 2019) |
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|
Source code accessibility | 0 | 0 | 1 | SORMAS has an open-source initiative approved license (GNU General Public License, Version 3, June 29, 2007) and is structured to allow local customizations and SORMAS is web-based and provides a relatively clear application programming interface (API) and database model. So, it is easy to build new modules and functionalities and host it on the same server (August 2019) |
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|
Funding and revenue | 1 | 1 | 1 | SORMAS is has been funded by the following donors and partners since its inception; Federal Ministry of Economic Cooperation and Development and the European Union via Deutsche Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit, BMBFd, Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, Nigerian Basic Health Care Provision Fund, US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Deutschen Zentrum für Infektionsforschung (DZIF). Funding sources for SORMAS increased from 1 in 2017, 3 in 2018, to 7 in 2019 (October 2019) |
| Community | 3 | 7 | 10 | N/A | |
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|
Developer, contributor, and implementer community engagement | −1 | 1 | 1 | SORMAS currently has at least 30% of estimated total developers from Nigeria, Tanzania, Ghana, and Germany (May 2018) |
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|
Community governance | 1 | 1 | 1 | In Nigeria, the steering board consists of representatives of Helmholtz Centre for Infection Research (HZI), Nigeria Centre for Disease Control, and in Ghana, the steering board includes Ghana Health Service, Ghana Community Network (GCNET), and HZI. The steering board is furthermore supported by an international external advisory board and an open-source clearance board (January 2018) |
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|
Software roadmap | −1 | 0 | 1 | New features and functionalities are documented as part of the SORMAS road map and are also part of a biweekly release cycle (May 2019) |
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|
User documentation | 0 | 0 | 1 | SORMAS currently has user guides and technical documentation in which the source codes, use cases, and functional requirement exists, including training videos that are available to address everyday deployment tasks (August 2018) [16] |
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|
Multilingual support | −1 | 0 | 1 | SORMAS has a multilingual support mechanism for English and French on its platform. The language translation component in SORMAS is easy to configure by a non-information technology (IT) person and can be adapted into any language required (February 2019) |
| Software | 1 | 5 | 10 | N/A | |
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|
Technical documentation | 0 | 0 | 1 | SORMAS has full documentation for deployment and configuration, which does not require the involvement of the core development team. The SORMAS mobile app has only been packaged for the Android version operation system and not yet packaged for the iPhone operating system. The SORMAS web app has been packaged for Windows, Apple, and Linux operating systems (August 2018) |
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|
Software productization | −1 | 0 | 1 | SORMAS has automatic software upgrades without the manual intervention of the developers and also has integrated unit testing as part of the release process (August 2019) |
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|
Interoperability and data accessibility | −1 | 0 | 1 | API end points exist within SORMAS for accessing and managing data, and SORMAS has user interfaces to export core data and metadata in the system (CSV format) for further analysis and data transfer purposes (August 2017) |
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|
Security | −1 | 0 | 1 | Role-based authorization exists within SORMAS and all remote access via the web interface and APIs are encrypted by default. SORMAS has undergone an independent security audit of the software, which has taken place within the past 12 months (May 2019) |
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|
Scalability | −1 | 0 | 1 | We have deployed SORMAS in at least 30% of all entities, which are managed within the software. There has been a surge in the number of users and deployments across the country in the last year (Indicator 2, subindicators J criteria). For every SORMAS release, we evaluate the software performance and perform load testing and IT integrated testing (October 2019) |
| Total score, n (%) | 10 (33) | 21 (70) | 30 (100) | N/A | |
aThe global good maturity model assigned scores for each subindicator as −1 for “low,” 0 for “medium,” and 1 for “high,” and computed average values for the 5 subindicators of each core indicator using the formula in equation (1) MS=5 *[MEAN (Si)] + 5, where, MS=Maturity score for each core indicator S, i=subindicator, i=1,...,5 (vector containing score of the subindicators).
bSORMAS: Surveillance Outbreak Response Management and Analysis System.
cN/A: not applicable.
dBMBF: German Federal Ministry of Education and Research