Designing National Health Stack for Public Health: Role of ICT-Based Knowledge Management System

Public health (PH), as a domain, requires astute amalgamation of the workings of different disciplines, because its eventual aim is to ‘prevent’ and not just ‘cure’ the health concerns of the entire community/population under consideration. Public health goals can be achieved more meaningfully by the application of information communication technology (ICT) that helps in overcoming the bottlenecks of brick-and-mortar healthcare models. Online consultations, cloud-based health management solutions, smart service-supported diagnoses are some such examples. The present study attempts to explore the design and implementation of ICT-based holistic knowledge management systems (KMS) to address public health concerns at the national level. At any point in time, different management information systems (MIS) are being used by various public authorities that directly or indirectly impact PH. However, the data being generated by these MIS is “stove piped” into standalone, heterogeneous databases. Non-standardized data formats, incompatible IT systems, an aggravated sense of ownership by the agency that collects the data are some of the factors that further worsen the problem. To overcome these issues, based on the study of best practices and literature review, the review paper proposes a conceptual model, referred to as national health stack (NHS). NHS is a multilayered KMS designed to support evidence-based decisions of public health and would pave the way towards “Good Health and well being” (UN SDG 3) for All.