Moana Digital Health
Origin language: English
Moana Digital Health is a purpose-built national digital health infrastructure platform for Pacific Island nations and low-resource environments. Unlike generic EHR systems adapted for the Pacific, Moana was designed from the ground up for small island developing states, where connectivity is unreliable, health workforces are small, and governments need sovereign control over their national health data.
The platform delivers a full-stack solution across 42 modules: patient registration, clinical documentation, laboratory information, pharmacy dispensing, public health surveillance, birth and death registration, child health, and vaccination, all in a single offline-first deployable system. Built on HAPI FHIR R4, ICD-11, and open interoperability standards, Moana integrates natively with national health information ecosystems without creating vendor lock-in.
Moana is currently deployed across Samoa and in partnership with the Ministry of Public Health, with the National Public Health Surveillance System nearing handover. Active government engagements are underway in Tuvalu, with digitisation of birth and death records and pharmacy strengthening as priority use cases. By 2027, Moana aims to serve as the foundational digital health infrastructure platform across the Pacific region, enabling governments to own, manage, and act on their population health data for the first time.
Deploying digital health infrastructure in Pacific Island nations presents distinct challenges that differ from continental low-resource settings. Intermittent internet connectivity and limited bandwidth required building a robust offline-first architecture with a 1,000-action sync queue to ensure clinical workflows continue uninterrupted during outages. Legacy paper-based records and fragmented data across facilities required designing flexible data ingestion pathways, including PDF lab record processing and CSV migration tools, to onboard existing patient data without disrupting clinical operations. Government procurement cycles and ministerial approval processes are longer in small island states, requiring sustained relationship-building and in-country presence alongside technical delivery. Resistance to change among clinical staff accustomed to paper workflows required careful change management and role-based access design to match existing team structures. Regulatory and legal frameworks for health data in Pacific Island nations are nascent, requiring Moana to operate under internationally recognized frameworks including HIPAA and GDPR as self-attested standards while national frameworks develop.
Early and sustained engagement with Ministry of Public Health stakeholders, including operational leads and clinical champions, was critical to aligning the platform with real workflow needs rather than assumed requirements. Embedding an on-the-ground pilot coordinator ensured feedback loops between clinical users and the development team remained short and actionable. Building on open interoperability standards including HAPI FHIR R4, ICD-11, and HL7 v2 from the outset prevented technical debt and ensured the platform could integrate with national and regional health information systems without costly rebuilds. Designing for the lowest common infrastructure denominator, including offline-first operation and low-bandwidth data sync, made the platform resilient across all facility types from national hospitals to remote clinics. Phased module delivery, beginning with core patient registration and clinical documentation before expanding to surveillance and pharmacy, allowed government partners to build confidence in the system incrementally before committing to full national deployment.
