Thiruvananthapuram: Sri Chitra Institute of Medical Sciences and Technology, in association with the University of Oslo, Norway, has developed a district-based health management information system.

Developed as part of a public health initiative of the institute, the system enables health workers at the grass roots to ensure better healthcare delivery.

The District Health Information System (DHIS) software, developed by the Indian wing of the Health Information Systems Program (HISP), a non-profit society representing the global research and development network of the university, has been pilot-tested in the capital district since January.

Software in PHCs

The software has been installed in 19 block-level primary health centres, where health workers have been trained to use it for managing community-level data collected by them. They also use it for generating monthly health reports being routinely sent to the Health Services Directorate.

Following the successful configuration of the software to meet the district's needs, HISP India has sought permission from the Department of Health to scale up the project and extend it to Kollam, Alappuzha and Kannur

"The DHIS is a completely free and open-source software, which has been developed and configured for the district's needs. HISP has over 10 years experience in developing systems that can be adapted to the needs of grass roots level workers in various countries. The system should ultimately be owned and managed by the community. Through ongoing training programmes, we are monitoring how best the health workers are using it," says Sundeep Sahay, president, HISP India.

Junior public health nurses or health inspectors now end up doing less of fieldwork and more of clerical duties. They have to send at least 20 reports every month to the directorate. There are no pre-printed forms and every data sheet has to be prepared manually.

Now using the software, health workers are entering data on computers. The software has not done away with the reporting system, though it is outdated.

The software has identified and defined data sets to meet all data registration needs, including those of health schemes such as the Integrated Disease Surveillance Programme and the HIV/AIDS or the TB control programme. All these data sets have been integrated into the software, reducing data duplication and workload.

Under the European Commission-funded sectoral reforms, the Centre for Development of Advanced Computing (CDAC) is working on computerisation of the directorate.

The Health Department is exploring the possibility of incorporating the DHIS component into the CDAC programme.

HISP now has an office in the city and facilitators for the project, who visit each block every week to conduct training programmes.

Looking for assistance

"As a university-funded programme, we do have certain limitations in sustaining the programme, bearing all expenses. We are now looking to the State for assistance in strengthening and scaling up the programme," says Dr. Sahay.

The HISP global initiative was started in South Africa in 1995. The Indian initiative was launched in Chittoor in Andhra Pradesh in 2000. It is now an internationally recognised global project supported by funding from the Norwegian Government and the European Union and has been developing health information software for developing countries.

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