
Policy insights from the Rwanda Ministry of Health and FIND
12/19/24 • 55 min
🎙️ New Episode: Connecting Global & Local Perspectives in Digital Health Implementation
In this special episode, we close out the year with two fantastic guests: Rigveda Kadam, Digital and AI Lead at FIND, and Andrew Muhire, Chief Digital Officer at Rwanda's Ministry of Health.
Building on the innovator insights in Rwanda from our previous episode with Dr. Jana Alagarajah, this discussion dives into the critical connection between product development partners and ministries of health to create conditions for successful digital health implementation.
From Rwanda’s patient-centered approach to FIND’s global perspective across LMICs, we explore:
✔️ How Rwanda balances top-down mandates with frontline adoption to foster trust.
✔️ Tackling antimicrobial resistance with clinician decision support as a case study.
✔️ Using systems thinking to measure success in evolving interventions—Andrew’s "contribution lines" approach is a must-hear!
✔️ Rigveda’s wishlist for the ecosystem: from WHO priority areas to better alignment on patient journeys.
Tune in for an inspiring conversation on infrastructure, policy, and trust—key elements for making impactful digital health innovations stick.
FIND: https://www.finddx.org/
Some resources mentioned:
- Rwanda MoH 7 priorities: https://newmoh.staging.risa.rw/1/strategic-plans-priorities
- The value of diagnostic imaging for enhancing primary care in low- and middle-income countries: https://www.thelancet.com/journals/eclinm/article/PIIS2589-5370(24)00478-4/fulltext
- ASSESSMENT OF DIAGNOSTIC GAPS AND RELEVANT DIGITAL HEALTH SOLUTIONS SUMMARY FINDINGS FROM PERU, INDIA, NIGERIA AND UGANDA: https://www.finddx.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/12/20201515_rep_assessment_dx_digital_health_FV_EN.pdf
- Principles for Digital Development: https://digitalprinciples.org/
- Overview of the validation platform: AI validation platform
About the guests:
Riveda Kadam: Experienced global health strategist with expertise in digital health, AI, and public health programs, driving impactful innovations and policy alignment.
Andrew Muhire : Chief Digital Officer at the Rwanda Ministry of Health
🎙️ New Episode: Connecting Global & Local Perspectives in Digital Health Implementation
In this special episode, we close out the year with two fantastic guests: Rigveda Kadam, Digital and AI Lead at FIND, and Andrew Muhire, Chief Digital Officer at Rwanda's Ministry of Health.
Building on the innovator insights in Rwanda from our previous episode with Dr. Jana Alagarajah, this discussion dives into the critical connection between product development partners and ministries of health to create conditions for successful digital health implementation.
From Rwanda’s patient-centered approach to FIND’s global perspective across LMICs, we explore:
✔️ How Rwanda balances top-down mandates with frontline adoption to foster trust.
✔️ Tackling antimicrobial resistance with clinician decision support as a case study.
✔️ Using systems thinking to measure success in evolving interventions—Andrew’s "contribution lines" approach is a must-hear!
✔️ Rigveda’s wishlist for the ecosystem: from WHO priority areas to better alignment on patient journeys.
Tune in for an inspiring conversation on infrastructure, policy, and trust—key elements for making impactful digital health innovations stick.
FIND: https://www.finddx.org/
Some resources mentioned:
- Rwanda MoH 7 priorities: https://newmoh.staging.risa.rw/1/strategic-plans-priorities
- The value of diagnostic imaging for enhancing primary care in low- and middle-income countries: https://www.thelancet.com/journals/eclinm/article/PIIS2589-5370(24)00478-4/fulltext
- ASSESSMENT OF DIAGNOSTIC GAPS AND RELEVANT DIGITAL HEALTH SOLUTIONS SUMMARY FINDINGS FROM PERU, INDIA, NIGERIA AND UGANDA: https://www.finddx.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/12/20201515_rep_assessment_dx_digital_health_FV_EN.pdf
- Principles for Digital Development: https://digitalprinciples.org/
- Overview of the validation platform: AI validation platform
About the guests:
Riveda Kadam: Experienced global health strategist with expertise in digital health, AI, and public health programs, driving impactful innovations and policy alignment.
Andrew Muhire : Chief Digital Officer at the Rwanda Ministry of Health
Previous Episode

Co-designing mental health solutions with young people in Rwanda
Implementing a digital mental health solution in Rwanda.
What does real, meaningful co-design look like?
What does it mean to truly engage with a community to develop a solution they actually use and that addresses their problems?
What incentives and mindsets allow us to, instead of 'driving' a certain technology into a context, stop and listen, and go in with no pre-conceived notion of what would be built?
How do we get procurement and policy to really value and elevate equitable solutions?
These are some of the great questions we covered in the latest podcast episode with Dr Jana Alagarajah. His wide experience, and work implementing a digital mental health tool with young people in Rwanda gives us some great talking points. Jana shares what he learned working with people and community leaders, as well as carers, and how they approached co-design and evaluation.
We also talked about his insights from working in partnership with UNICEF, USAID, the King's Fund and Health Foundation.
Dr Jana Alagarajah (MD MPH): Digital mental health specialist, UK-trained public health doctor, and psychiatrist co-designing equitable and impactful digital health innovation in Africa with young people as Technical Lead at YLabs. Partnering with UNICEF, USAID, and Gates Foundation, he leverages digital tools to strengthen health systems.
Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/janaganalagarajah/
YLabs: https://www.ylabsglobal.org/
Grand Challenges Canada: https://www.grandchallenges.ca/
Key Resources:
- Design:
- Co-design: YLabs’ Youth-driven approach to digital health focussing on co-designing with youth.
- Designing for diversity: Importance of co-creating culturally adapted tech to address health inequalities in diverse populations - report from NHS Race and Health Observatory.
- Regulation: Co-developed Africa’s first evidence-based digital mental health regulation (‘HealthTech Hub Africa Digital Health Policy Blueprint 1.0’) with the Rwandan Ministry of Heath, Africa CDC, Jhpiego, Novartis Foundation covering key design elements such as interoperability, data privacy and UX approaches to meet the needs of diverse populations.
- Implementation:
- Digital stigma reduction tool: ‘Prepare for a Better Tomorrow’ (Rwanda, 2021): Rwanda’s first youth-driven, holistic digital learning and peer support platform to increase mental health literacy and psychosocial support for Rwandan youth aged 10-19 years old. Funded by Grand Challenges Canada.
- Digital tools for mental healthcare workers: ‘USAID Kijana Nahodha’ (Tanzania, 2023): digital mental health education and referral tool for community health workers in Tanzania as part of a $5.4M USAID grant, impacting 140,000 youth and 250 community health workers.
- Evaluation:
- Evidence generation: A systematic literature review evaluating the efficacy of digital mental health technologies for youth in low and middle-income countries: Alagarajah J, Ceccolini D, Butler S. Digital mental health interventions for treating mental disorders in young people based in low-and middle-income countries: A systematic review of the literature. Cambridge Prisms: Global Mental Health. 2024;11:e74. doi:10.1017/gmh.2024.71
- Innovative approaches to digital evaluation: At YLabs, we have utilized traditional evaluation methodologies such as cluster RCTs to evaluate our digital interventions. However, given the challenges in evaluating digital health solutions, novel methodologies, such as cyclical evaluation, can be used to maximize usability, and support integration into health systems.
Next Episode

Making ethics actionable in digital health
Making Ethics Actionable.
What can the UK’s AI Action plan reveal about the state of ethics in the digital health industry?
If you are a health system leader or government entity, how do you elevate ethical approaches in your ecosystem? What levers are available?
And for the builders: product leaders, founders, clinicians at health tech companies, software engineers, designers, QA folk: how to negotiate and advocate for ethical approaches against business realities in the current climate?
We cover all of this, as well as Jess’ super hot takes on the UK govt AI action plan, Ethics 101 for vendors, researchers and policy folk, AND what leaders in LMIC settings can take away from all of this.
Jess Morley of the Digital Ethics Center at Yale also previously worked with NHSX and also on the Goldacre review in 2022. She has deep expertise on ethics and policy and some really unique insights.
Links to stuff we discussed
UK Govt AI opportunities action plan
Jess' linkedin article with commentary on the action plan
If you like this episode you’ll love
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