Mission

The OpenHIE Steering Committee’s mission is to provide fundamental guidance around community priorities, and areas of emphasis to OpenHIE’s Operational Leadership Team which supports and guides overall daily operations and direction for the community driven on real world experiences.  This “strategic” leadership will help to inform strategies, roadmaps, and future plans for the OpenHIE community.

Member Goals and Responsibilities

• Guide the Operational Leadership Team in the development of the strategic direction and annual operating plans for OpenHIE
• Assess quarterly community progress reports, provided by Operational Leadership Team, in relation to yearly operating plan. 
• Provide recommendations, feedback, guidance, advice on current OpenHIE community activities. 
• Openly provide input on what the OpenHIE community could be doing to better support country realization of national architectures and implementations.
• Help to educate and provide external networking connections to share the goals and rationale around the OpenHIE community.
• Provide innovative thinking and insights into the future of the implementation of national health data sharing architectures.

What is not expected of an OpenHIE Steering Committee Member?

• Support the OpenHIE community in an operational capacity
• Make direct financial contributions to the community

Membership and Organization

• Chaired by MOH representative, and made up of over 50% MOH/MOH-delegated participants. 
• Other participants should ideally be direct beneficiaries of the community’s proceeds to insure community is moving in the proper direction
• The Steering Committee shall be a permanent consultative and adjunct part of the OpenHIE community, and works to provide direct guidance and oversight to the Operational Leadership Team.
• The Operational Leadership Team will help identify a Steering Committee leader on a rotating term to be determined.
• The Steering Committee should include individuals that represent critical areas of expertise that are relevant to the OpenHIE community, and embody the following attributes:
• desire to improve health equity throughout the world
• an ability to communicate advice in a way that can tangibly be acted upon
• openness to other perspectives
• understanding of the health information system landscape within low and middle income countries 
• Members shall initially be appointed for a two-year term and can be renewed as appropriate; the Steering Committee can recommend the terms and appointment and reappointment process once the Committee is established. These recommendations will be approved by the Operational Leadership Team.
• The steering committee is supported by a light secretariat team that will arrange for meetings, manage intergroup communications, keep notes for meetings, and perform related support functions.

Meetings

• The Steering Committee shall meet regularly for at least one hour on a quarterly basis, and shall provide recommendations to the Operational Leadership Team through:
• Direct feedback in meetings,
• Subcommittees as relevant to the needs of the OpenHIE community,
• Written comments on OpenHIE Discourse,
• Individual availability as needed to members of the OpenHIE Leadership Team for advice and organizational guidance, and
• Asynchronous information and interaction.

• The Steering Committee shall be responsible for developing a schedule for regular meetings, using the monthly Steering Committee agenda developed by the OpenHIE Leadership Team as the basis for the monthly meeting agenda, and working with the Steering Committee members as well as the OpenHIE Leadership Team as needed.
• One or more representatives of the Operational Leadership Team shall attend each regularly-scheduled Steering Committee meeting.

Decision Making Process