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Accepted for/Published in: Journal of Medical Internet Research

Date Submitted: Jun 24, 2024
Open Peer Review Period: Jul 2, 2024 - Aug 27, 2024
Date Accepted: Oct 23, 2025
(closed for review but you can still tweet)

The final, peer-reviewed published version of this preprint can be found here:

Africa’s Digital Health Revolution: The Digital Fit-Viability Model to Move From Innovation to Scaled Implementation

Jiwa A, Ngatia A, Benali K, Boehmer N, Delle S, Emedom-Nnamdi P, Fofie CO, O’Brien C, Olatunji T, Obayabgona K, Tambe M, Fletcher RR, Boatin AA, Hedt-Gauthier B

Africa’s Digital Health Revolution: The Digital Fit-Viability Model to Move From Innovation to Scaled Implementation

J Med Internet Res 2026;28:e63495

DOI: 10.2196/63495

PMID: 41534074

PMCID: 12853090

Africa’s digital health revolution:the digital fit-viability model to move from innovation to scaled implementation

  • Afra Jiwa; 
  • Antony Ngatia; 
  • Karim Benali; 
  • Niclas Boehmer; 
  • Sangu Delle; 
  • Patrick Emedom-Nnamdi; 
  • Chris Opoku Fofie; 
  • Christine O’Brien; 
  • Tobi Olatunji; 
  • Kate Obayabgona; 
  • Milind Tambe; 
  • Richard Ribon Fletcher; 
  • Adeline Adwoa Boatin; 
  • Bethany Hedt-Gauthier

ABSTRACT

Background:

Digital innovations hold immense potential to transform healthcare delivery, particularly in sub-Saharan Africa, where financial, geographical, and infrastructural constraints continue to hinder progress towards universal healthcare delivery. While a growing health tech sector offers creative solutions, few digital health interventions reach scaled implementation. In this paper, we present the digital fit/viability model – an adapted determinant framework to describe facilitators and barriers to moving from digital tools to integrated digital health implementation. We then use this model to describe the specific challenges and recommended solutions when developing digital health tools for health systems in sub-Saharan Africa.


 Citation

Please cite as:

Jiwa A, Ngatia A, Benali K, Boehmer N, Delle S, Emedom-Nnamdi P, Fofie CO, O’Brien C, Olatunji T, Obayabgona K, Tambe M, Fletcher RR, Boatin AA, Hedt-Gauthier B

Africa’s Digital Health Revolution: The Digital Fit-Viability Model to Move From Innovation to Scaled Implementation

J Med Internet Res 2026;28:e63495

DOI: 10.2196/63495

PMID: 41534074

PMCID: 12853090

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