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Table 2 Some strengths and weaknesses of HIS in developing countries

From: Health information systems in developing countries: case of African countries

Organizational issue

Technical issue

Strengths

Definition and validation of the data to be collected by all stakeholders

Review and harmonization of data collection tools to avoid data overlap and duplication

Definition of harmonized national indicators

Validation of a national data warehouse, sometimes cohabiting with existing subsystems

Consensual choice of essential indicators by theme

Creation of a HIS coordination unit housed at the level of the Ministry of Health in some cases

Weaknesses

HIS not sufficiently taken into account in national health policies, making it difficult to ensure the sustainability of HIS at the end of projects

Inadequate institutional management of HIS

Coherent conceptual frameworks insufficiently

defined

Dependency on external donors for HIS funding

Strengths

Possibility to contextualize and adapt DHIS to nationally validated models

Consensus approach to a system

Removal of redundant data and improvement of data quality at the central level

Possibility to enter DHIS information from a mobile phone or a paper data collection medium

Storage and centralization of data in a single database

Weaknesses

Design (of DHIS) taking insufficient account of the needs of data-producing structures because the collection and transmission of aggregated data more helps decision-making at the central level and not the local one

Unable to collect primary data in DHIS (individual patient data)

DHIS does not allow the linking of care data with those of other systems such as health insurance