Designing Digital Identity Infrastructure at the Seams Between Systems, Institutions, and People
For ministries and global health institutions building identity and health information systems that last.
Civil Registries
Digital Identity Systems
Information Systems
Health Systems
Why focus on the seams of a digital identity infrastructure?
Identity and health information systems don’t usually fail at the centre. They fail at the seams. Between systems that were never built to talk to each other. Between a well-designed platform and the institution that has to govern, fund, and sustain it. Between a record made once and a person whose life doesn’t stay still. Blue Tide Global designs identity systems at all seams, for ministries and global health institutions delivering DHIS2, OpenEMIS, MOSIP, and civil registration platforms that need to hold up in practice, not just for the pilot.
The Technical Problem
Patient IDs, civil registration, and national identity platforms rarely speak to each other cleanly. Without deliberate linkage design, systems like DHIS2, OpenEMIS, and MOSIP end up duplicating records instead of connecting them
The Institutional Problem
Even a well-designed system fails if it doesn’t fit an institution’s procurement rules, governance capacity, or organisational culture. Identity systems have to be designed for the bureaucracy they live inside.
The Human Problem
Identity systems are built to record a person once and assume that record holds. But names change. Households change. People move, age, and lose or gain legal status. A system with no way to absorb change can quietly exclude the person it was meant to serve.
Services
Blue Tide Global Designs at the Seams, where Digital Identity Systems Break
Linkage
Identity & Health Data Linkage
Design and review of patient ID systems, civil registration, and vital statistics (CRVS) integration, and deduplication strategy across DHIS2, OpenEMIS, and national identity platforms such as MOSIP
Architecture
System Architecture & Selection
Independent, vendor-neutral advice on whether DHIS2, OpenEMIS, or a hybrid approach fits an institution’s needs, technical capacity, and governance structure
Advisory
Public Sector Readiness & Local Advisory
Support navigating procurement, data governance policy, and institutional change. For ministries and global institutions, and equally for local authorities, NHS Scotland, and Scottish public bodies
Profile
About Katherine
Blue Tide Global was founded by Dr Katherine Wyers, whose work sits at the intersection of infrastructure, institutions, and the people who depend on both. Her doctoral research examined how identity and public sector health and welfare systems hold up in practice, not just in policy or pilot, where records break down, where governance fails to keep pace with technology, and where systems built to record a person once struggle when a life doesn’t stay still. One strand of that research looked closely at transgender identity recognition in India as a case study, but the underlying pattern shows up just as clearly in migration, disability, household change, and legacy system transition. Handling change is an infrastructural problem.
The research is grounded in hands-on technical experience with DHIS2, OpenEMIS, and national identity platforms, and a background in software engineering, meaning that Katherine can design an architecture and build a working proof herself. Blue Tide Global combines identity research, public sector understanding, and technical fluency to design systems at all three seams, where technologies fail to connect, where institutions fail to sustain what they’ve adopted, and where systems fail to keep up with the people they’re meant to serve.
Who is this for?
Global Institutions
Ministries of health, global health funders (Gavi, Global Fund, WHO, UNICEF), and implementing partners delivering DHIS2, OpenEMIS, and MOSIP-based identity projects
Local & Public Sector
Local authorities, NHS Scotland, and Scottish public bodies working through identity and health data challenges. Based in Scotland. Working globally
BLOG
Notes from the Seams: Blog
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