DISTRICT HEALTH INFORMATION MANAGEMENT
SYSTEM DHIMS II- ADDRESSING
THEHEALTH INFORMATION GAPS
THE EXPERIENCE OF THE GHANA HEALTH SERVICE
Dr. Frank Nyonator, Dr. Anthony Ofosu , Mr. Dan Osei , Mr.
Dominic K Atweam
Ghana Health Service-Policy Planning Monitoring and
Evaluation Division
Outline of presentation
• HMIS Challenges
• ICT Solutions
• Requirements and Security
• Innovation
• Lessons learnt
• Conclusion
HIMS Challenges
• Obtaining routine service data (USEFUL DATA) from all health
facilities across Ghana has been the single most immediate
challenge of the health sector
• USEFUL DATA for health managers at all levels for planning,
budgeting and decision-making has not been timely or complete.
• Difficulty in tracking both reporting and non-reporting facilities
•
Greater challenge for monitoring and evaluation activities of the
sector.
• This culminates in the slow response of GHS in addressing
potential health emergencies and epidemics and planning based
on estimates.
ICT Solution
• GHS Collaborated with the University of Oslo developed a software
called the District Health Information Management System
(DHIMS2)
• DHIMS2 is a comprehensive HMIS solution for the reporting and
analysis needs of district health administrations and health facilities
at every level.
It’s been designed to
• Provide a comprehensive HMIS solution based on data warehousing
principles and a modular structure which can easily be customized to
the needs of different health systems - national, regions, districts, and
facilities
• DHIMS2 is centralized, which enables easy, online updates and
deployment of the application.
ICT Solution-Accessibility
• DHIMS2 is accessible in all 170 (216) districts and is being
used by health facilities and district health directorates to
collect, collate, transmit and analyze routine health service
data.
• All staff in District Health Directorates and health facilities
with the required capacity for DHIMS2 management has
been registered as secure users on the DHIMS2 server.
• There are currently 5,563 registered users from government,
quasi-government, private and faith-based facilities that are
submitting their service report each month.
Requirement & Security
• The only requirements for the user is to have a web
browser installed on a computer and have an
Internet connection.
• To access DHIMS2 you do not need any software to
be installed on your computer. It works independent
of the operating system on your personal computer.
• Data is encrypted , SSL certficate authentication
• Requires strict user guide line
Personalized Dashboard that Managers can track their
service data of interest
Quick reports for managers
INNOVATION
• GHS ensured in-house capacity building and
development of DHIMS2 application .
• All modifications done on the DHIS2 platform to
adapt it for GHS use as DHIMS2 were
accomplished by our own staff, trained by a TA ‘s
from the University Of Oslo.
• We have accomplished a nationwide
implementation of a web-based data collation and
reporting system involve private, quasi government
and government facilities without an initial pilot
project.
Implementation
• GHS to date has trained 5 health workers in each of the
170(216) districts (850 health workers), 180 system
administrators across the 10 Regional Health Directorates
and all 170(216) District health directorates to support the
use of DHIMS2 in collecting and collating health service
data.
•
Senior Managers at the headquarters level, Regional and
district level have also been trained and all now use
DHIMS2 to monitor the service utilization and inputs as
well as to generate their own reports due to the real time
data on DHIMS2
LESSONS LEARNED
• When routine health service data is visible,
easily available and accessible on a common
platform for all managers it leads to
improvement in Data Quality.
• Dealing with the Human Factor and Change
management are the most important
challenges to overcome when putting in a
technology to address service delivery
bottlenecks
CONCLUSION
• Introducing DHIMS2 into the Health
Sector has so far been successful in
mitigating the challenges with service
data collection and reducing the
information transmission bottlenecks
and timeliness.
.
Integrated architecture of interoperable systems
Integrated architecture of interoperable systems and infrastructures
(paper, computers, internet, mobiles telephones
Replicated at each
administrative level:
•
National
•
Regional
•
District
Data Warehouse
Reports, GIS, Pivot,
Graphs etc
Data from/to mobile
phones
Data capture from
Paper reports
Import e data
Household
Tracking
Export e summary data
Logistics
MIS
Open LMIS
Human
Resource
Records
iHRIS
Monthly summary
Reports
Medical
Records
Open MRS
Telephone
Register pregnant women
and immunization