Health Information is increasingly gaining importance as a strategic resource and tool for laying the foundation of any improvement in the public health domain of developing countries.
Besides being of poor quality, very often the available information is not usable or provided in appropriate formats for decisions makers, since it is not integrated across health programmes or administrative levels. This book therefore attempts to understand the challenges, both at the technical and institutional levels. It also endeavors to develop a framework that would allow various involved systems to speak with each other, besides providing more power to the users, the basis of integrated and better quality information processes.
The authors draw upon over 15 years of their respective engagements with health information systems across a variety of developing countries, under the framework of the Health Information Systems Programme (HISP) to develop a conceptual perspective on building and using an Integrated Health Information Architecture and to share their experience and knowledge in demonstrating how practical and effective implementation is possible.
The book also shares all-embracing information on District Health Information System (DHIS), a product of the HISP Network, developed as a concrete proof of concept on how IHIAs can be built, drawing upon multiple examples from several countries.
Download in one file (pdf, 28.5 MB)
Download chapter-by-chapter (pdf):
Part I: Good Design
1. Integrated Health Information Architectures – The Vision
2. Integrated Health Information Architectures – Operationalising the Vision
3. Integration and Interoperability – Standardisation is the Key
4. Strategies for Scaling of Integrated Information Architectures
Part II: Implementing Good Design
5. Practical Design Guidelines
6. District Health Information Software – What it is
7. How to Set-Up DHIS2 in a New Context?
8. Building Capacity – The Power of Networks
Part III: Maturing Information Use
9. Maturing Use: Toward the Nurturing of an ‘Information Culture’
10. Cultivating Capacity for Local Action
12. Technology, Health and Development