Overview
Zambia’s digital-health journey can be traced back to the launch of the SmartCare Electronic Health Record (EHR). Designed in the early 2000s as an offline-first, nationally scalable system for low-resource environments, SmartCare is now being extended to all 116 districts, with a goal of reaching about 3,000 facilities under the current rollout plan. Digital-health priorities were first formalised in the 2017–2021 National eHealth Strategy and are now being accelerated through the 2022-2026 Digital Health Strategy, which aims for “improved health outcomes for all Zambians through a sustainable, secure and innovative digital-health ecosystem that operates seamlessly.” The strategy rests on seven pillars: governance, sustainable financing, workforce, legislation, interoperability, infrastructure and the expansion of digital solutions.
Interoperability sits at the centre of Zambia’s digital-health vision: the Interoperability Architectural Framework (IAF) —developed in 2023 to operationalise the 2022-2026 Digital Health Strategy's interoperability initiatives—sets out a staged path to a national Health-Information Exchange built on open standards such as HL7 FHIR, IHE profiles and secure REST APIs. A dedicated Standards & Interoperability Sub-Committee of the Digital Health Technical Working Group now oversees this agenda, defining a “minimum viable product”
Key milestones include nationwide roll-out of the SmartCare electronic health-record platform, Electronic Logistics Management System, expansion of DHIS2 for routine and programme surveillance. Zambia is also implementing the Integrated National Registration Information System (INRIS), laying the foundation for a unique patient ID that will link into future health-information-exchange (HIE) services
Designated eHLF Representative
Name: Chisanga Louis Siwale
Role: Senior Health Informatics Officer
Email: Chisanga.Siwale@moh.gov.zm
Governance
Digital health is steered through a Digital Health Technical Working Group (TWG) chaired by the Ministry of Health’s ICT Directorate. The TWG brings together Smart Zambia, programme managers, donors and implementing partners to set standards, coordinate investments and monitor implementation.
Governance of Zambia’s digital-health ecosystem is anchored in the Ministry of Health’s ICT Directorate, which convenes a Digital Health Technical Working Group (DH TWG) as the single point of accountability for implementing the 2022-2026 Digital Health Strategy and the Interoperability Architectural Framework (IAF). The DH TWG—guided by SMART Zambia Institute—meets at least every quarter and channels decisions up to the Permanent Secretary; it is supported by monthly sub-committees on (1) Leadership, Governance, Investment & Sustainability; (2) Legislation, Policy & Compliance; (3) Workforce; (4) Standards & Interoperability; (5) Services & Applications; and (6) Infrastructure. Each sub-committee has formal terms of reference. A planned knowledge hub and secure sandbox environment is envisioned to institutionalise learning, stakeholder engagement and conformance testing before nationwide roll-out.
Policies and Acts:
| Instrument | Year | Relevance |
|---|---|---|
| eGovernment Act | 2021 | Mandates digital service delivery |
| Electronic Communications & Transactions Act | 2021 | Legal basis for electronic records & signatures |
| Cyber-Security & Cyber-Crimes Act | 2021 | Protects critical information infrastructure |
| Data Protection Act | 2021 | Establishes Data-Protection Commissioner; health-data governance |
| National Health Policy & NHSP | 2017 on | Sector priorities & UHC targets |
workflow and architecture diagrams coming soon
Tip: please use the background color fill option located at the bottom right of the formatting tool bar to fill in each step in the process that your country has completed for each component (Please use a gradient scale)
Zambia | Presented in | Planned, Designed, and Developed | Deployed in a Limited Scope | Deployed Nationally | Actively Exchanging Health Information |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Logistics Management | |||||
| Shared Health Record | |||||
| HMIS (Aggregate Data) | |||||
| Finance and Insurance | |||||
| Terminology | |||||
| Client Registry | |||||
| Facility Registry | |||||
| Health Worker Registry | |||||
| Product Catalogue | |||||
| Interoperability Layer |
