Global Water Challenge and the Water Point Data Exchange (WPdx) are excited to announce the launch of the development of a water, sanitation, and hygiene (WASH) in health care facilities data exchange platform. Please see the press release for additional details.

The new platform will be a critical resource for governments, NGOs, and companies to close the gap of 1 in 4 healthcare facilities without basic water services. The platform will be developed in partnership the Millennium Water Alliance and funding from the Conrad N. Hilton Foundation. The WASH Health Facility Data Exchange (WHdx)
platform will support decision makers to improve health services through optimized water, sanitation and hygiene (WASH) investments.

According to WHO/UNICEF 2020, globally, 1 in 4 healthcare facilities lack basic water services, impacting more than 1.8 billion people – worsened by large gaps in sanitation, hygiene, and waste management services. As a result, healthcare providers are unable to provide quality patient healthcare and put themselves at risk of infection, a reality further intensified during the COVID-19 pandemic. Given the often-limited resources available, health and WASH leaders must prioritize which facilities receive improvements even when they lack a clear understanding of the gaps.

WHdx will harmonize healthcare facility WASH data into a singular, publicly available dataset through the establishment of a data standard, providing unique data analysis and decision-making tools for both the water and health sectors. Furthermore, WHdx will be able to provide WASH service records from individual health facilities over time and compare health facilities across geographies from village to country-levels, showing locations of greatest need, problematic issues, and recommendations for highest impact interventions.

Building on the Water Point Data Exchange (WPdx), the world’s largest rural water open data platform with 600,000 water point records from over 80 organizations across more than 50 countries, development of the WHdx platform is a collaboration between WASH and health sector experts to ensure that consistent, user-friendly data is readily available for evidence-based decisions.

The WHdx platform will be guided by a working group including Catholic Relief Services, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), Emory University, Helvetas, the Safe Water and AIDS Project (SWAP), Millennium Water Alliance, and Global Water Challenge. The process of selecting standard parameters for the platform is currently underway.