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Background: Government and partners have invested heavily in the health information system (HIS) for service delivery, surveillance, reporting, and monitoring. Sierra Leone government launched her first digital health strategy in 2018. In 2019, a broader National Innovation and digital strategy was launched. The health-pillar direction will use Big data and Artificial Intelligence (AI) to improve healthcare in general, and maternal and child health in particular. Understanding the number, distribution, and interoperability of digital health solutions is crucial for successful implementation strategies.

Objective: This paper presents the state of digital health solutions in Sierra Leone, and how these solutions currently interoperate. This study further presents opportunities for big data and AI application.

Methods: All the district health management teams, Digital health implementing organizations, and sample Seventy-two health facilities representatives were surveyed.

Results: Health facility survey shows that 94% of health facilities had at least one digital health project being implemented. The National Health Management Information (NHMIS) aggregate reporting solution was by far the most used. Half of health facilities had more than two digital health solutions in use. Data was not being exchanged among the surveyed digital health systems.

Conclusions: The different digital health software solutions do not share data amongst one another, though reporting data is sent as necessary. The vision of using big data for healthcare is achievable if stakeholders prioritize these healthcare exchange using agreed use cases from the national strategies. Many digital …