The Ministry realized the challenges met when implementing HMIS and so the Ministry in collaboration with development partners decided to find another solution by implementing different strategies in order to strengthen HMIS. The operation plan to strengthen HMIS was developed which is called District Health Information System (DHIS).
The operational plan follows the agreed design of two integrated approaches; 1) a rapid regional deployment (”top-down”) National HMIS rollout and 2) medium term district strengthening (“bottom-up”). While the top-down approach ensures national coverage and consolidation of the revised HMIS, the bottom-up approach ensures continuous system strengthening, improved use of information for monitoring, planning and management at all levels, further revisions of data sets and more in-depth capacity building.
In implementing DHIS We adopts a broad based developmental approach to capacity building and support of communities, health care workers and decision makers for improving health information systems. DHIS support integration of information systems through open standards and data exchange mechanisms. Focussing on local solutions for developing country contexts, DHIS is subscribed to the Free and Open Source philosophy of sharing our products such as training materials and software solutions.DHIS promote access to and use of information for action.
The DHIS 2 is a tool for collection, validation, analysis, and presentation of aggregate statistical data, tailored (but not limited) to integrated health information management activities. It is a generic tool rather than a pre-configured database application, with an open meta-data model and a flexible user interface that allows the user to design the contents of a specific information system without the need for programming. DHIS 2 and upwards is a modular web-based software package built with free and open source Java frameworks.
Therefore the Development and implementation of DHIS will bring sustainable and integrated health information systems that empower communities, health workers and decision makers to improve the coverage, quality and efficiency of health services in assisting in data of outbreak investigation and research.
