ArticleJMIR medical informatics2025
Implementation of WHO SMART Guidelines-Digital Adaptation Kits in Pathfinder Countries in Africa: Processes and Early Lessons Learned.
Article in JMIR medical informatics, 2025. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 4 papers.
What it found
Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.
The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
4 citing papers in PubMed.
- Frequency, Plausibility and Internal Consistency of International Classification of Diseases (ICD) Coding Related to Cystic Echinococcosis Within the Jordanian Ministry of Health Database: A Quality-Assurance Study.Healthcare (Basel, Switzerland) · 2026Article
- Preparing the Health Workforce for Digital Antenatal Care: A COM-B-Informed Workshop Using the WHO Digital Adaptation Kit Integration in Cameroon.Healthcare (Basel, Switzerland) · 2026Article
- Localizing WHO SMART guidelines-Digital Adaptation Kits (DAKs) for country impact: implementation insights from Cameroon, Ethiopia, Ghana, and Zambia.Oxford open digital health · 2026Article
- The Guideline Uptake in Digital Ecosystems (GUIDE) study: protocol for implementation research on the impact of WHO SMART guidelines digital adaptation kits to improve quality of care.Health research policy and systems · 2025Article
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
23 authors.
Funding
Abstract
Background: The adoption of digital systems requires processes for quality assurance and uptake of standards to achieve universal health coverage. The World Health Organization developed the Digital Adaptation Kits (DAKs) within the SMART (Standards-based, Machine-readable, Adaptive, Requirements-based, and Testable) guidelines framework to support the uptake of standards and recommendations through digital systems. DAKs are a software-neutral mechanism for translating narrative guidelines to support the design of digital systems. However, a systematic process is needed to implement and ensure the impact of DAKs in country contexts. Objective: This paper details the structured process and stepwise approach to customize the DAKs to the national program and digital context in 5 countries in Africa with diverse program guideline uptake and significant digital health investments: Ethiopia, Ghana, Malawi, Zambia, and Zimbabwe. All these countries have existing digital systems, which have the potential to be updated with the DAKs. Methods: A DAK assessment tool was developed and used to assess guideline digitization readiness and opportunities for system uptake in each country. Multistakeholder teams were established to conduct the content review and alignment of the generic DAK to national guidelines and protocols through a series of stakeholder consultations, including stakeholder orientation, content review and alignment, content validation, and software update meetings. Unlabelled: Country adaptation processes identified requirements for national-level contextualization and highlighted opportunities for refinement of DAKs. Quality assurance of the content during the content review and validation processes ensured alignment with national protocols. Adaptation processes also facilitated the adoption of the DAKs approach into national guidelines and strategic documents for sexual and reproductive health. Conclusions: Country experiences offered early insights into the opportunities and benefits of a structured approach to digitalizing primary health care services. They also highlighted how this process can be continuously refined and sustained to enhance country-level impact.
Indexed as
Identifiers
What OpenQuestion holds
Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.