Meet Doreen Wamiti
Doreen Wamiti always imagined a future in healthcare. As a teenager, her ambition was to study medicine, but when that path didn’t work out she chose computer science instead – a practical qualification that offered good career prospects. However, despite spending her first three years after university working in banking, Doreen never lost sight of where she really wanted to be; “My heart was always in the health sector,” she says.

She enrolled for a Master’s degree in Applied Computing at the University of Nairobi, specialising in Health Informatics. Looking back, she sees this as the moment when her technical background and long-standing interest in healthcare finally came together.

“Before then, I was a jack of all trades but a specialist of nothing”; she reflects, “and the Master’s really enabled me to find my niche.”

While still studying, Doreen joined GIZ as an intern on a project supporting Kenya’s Health Management Information System. Working alongside County Health Teams gave her first-hand insight into the challenges of collecting and using health information to manage health services effectively, as well as an understanding of how digital technologies can help strengthen health systems.

The internship soon became a full-time role, launching a career that has now spanned almost a decade. During this time, Doreen has worked with ministries of health and on regional programmes across Eastern and Southern Africa to design and strengthen digital health information systems. Today, she works as an independent digital health consultant, and is recognised for her expertise in the design and implementation of DHIS2 – the open-source platform that underpins health information systems in a growing number of countries around the world.

The technology itself, however, has never been the end goal for Doreen. Her real passion is helping health workers and decision-makers use their data to improve health services.

My greatest joy isn’t just digitising tools, it’s seeing people actually use the data the tools produce.

A Day in the Life

Ask Doreen what a typical working day looks like and – like so many of her cohort in digital health tech – she responds, “for me, there really is no typical day.”

As an independent consultant, she usually has more than one project on the go, so her days usually start with planning and prioritising to ensure that deadlines for different clients are met.While Doreen understandably spends much of her time in front of a computer, developing the technology is only one part of the job. Every assignment begins by working closely with clients to understand their information needs. And throughout a project, she is gathering feedback from ministry officials and programme teams, testing and refining the system before it can be rolled out and users can be trained.

“It’s a very collaborative process,” she explains. “You are constantly working with people to make sure the system reflects how they actually work day to day.”

A recently concluded assignment in Somalia offers a good illustration of this. The project involved setting up a new DHIS2 instance and developing data capture tools for use by female community health workers. To minimise disruption, this needed to resemble their existing Open Data Kit (ODK) platform, while remaining simple enough for users with varying levels of digital literacy. “At the start of this assignment, I needed to consult widely with the female CHWs and their supervisors,” says Doreen.

A current assignment in Malawi provides a further glimpse into her day-to-day work. In collaboration with the PSI Malawi office and the Ministry of Health, Doreen is helping to digitise data quality assessment tools that have traditionally been managed using Excel spreadsheets. Integrating them into the country’s DHIS2 platform will allow health managers to monitor data quality alongside routine health indicators, all within a single national system.

Doreen is currently looking at functioning of their existing systems. “I might start the morning reviewing the Excel files from the Ministry,” she explains. “Right now, I’m looking at how the data flows, what data they are tracking, and the decisions they need to make based on that information.” Only once she understands these requirements does the technical design begin.

Much of Doreen’s consultancy work is undertaken independently. While she sometimes misses the camaraderie of team work, she also appreciates the flexibility consulting offers. “Sometimes I miss working in a team and being able to delegate work when deadlines are tight,” she admits. “But working on my own also allows me to move things forward more quickly.” Like many independent consultants, Doreen also spends time developing proposals and maintaining professional networks to ensure a steady pipeline of future work.

Being a Woman in Digital Health
Throughout her career, Doreen has often found herself to be the only woman on a technical team. There were relatively few women studying computer science at university, she was then the only woman on her technical team at GIZ, and one of only three women within PSI’s digital health team. “It can sometimes be a bit lonely for women in health tech,” she reflects.

Yet despite working in environments where men greatly outnumber women, Doreen says she rarely feels excluded. “I’ve always felt like an equal participant – and sometimes I even feel people take me more seriously than the men.” She believes mentorship has been more important than gender in shaping her career. While still at university, a female mentor provided Doreen with invaluable guidance, helping her work out the direction she wanted to take and giving her the confidence to follow this pathway.

Today, she is determined to pass that support on to others. One young woman she has mentored at PSI started out in a very junior role, and put herself through university to study computer science. Doreen encouraged and guided her to learn the DHIS2 system, and today they work together as professional colleagues on digital health projects. “It feels so nice to help someone and see them thrive,” she says.

Looking ahead
Looking ahead, Doreen believes artificial intelligence will increasingly support digital health specialists by simplifying complex system configuration and enabling more sophisticated health analytics. Rather than replacing technical experts, she sees AI as another tool that will allow her to solve more complex health informatics challenges. She would also like to see more opportunities for women to build careers in digital health through mentoring programmes, professional networks and leadership initiatives.

Looking back on her own journey – from computer science graduate, to banker, to a senior health informatics specialist – Doreen hopes her experience will inspire other women to pursue a career in digital health. What matters is finding a role where technical skills can make a tangible difference to people’s lives.