Enhancing the Health Management Information System in Bhutan
Project Date: 2000–2002
Since the early 1990s MSH has collaborated with the EuroHealth Group to review various aspects of Bhutan's health sector. This work is designed to help the Danish Agency for Development Assistance (DANIDA) prioritize interventions to support health reform in that country. In 2000, MSH began providing assistance to Bhutan's Ministry of Health and Education in its efforts to improve the country's Health Management Information System (HMIS) and to take advantage of rapidly developing information technology, which the country's health sector has been slow to capitalize upon.
To ensure that Bhutan's HMIS is both effective and sustainable, MSH is taking a methodical approach to the project over a two-year period. This began with an exercise to identify key health status, health service, and critical resource indicators required to manage priority health problems. The second phase consisted of a wide-ranging rapid assessment of the existing Health Information System and an assessment of information needs at the district level.
The project's third phase will include redesigning data recording and reporting formats and beginning to computerize key data management procedures at district and national levels. Finally, the project will work with the Ministry of Health and Education to develop effective strategies to roll out the system's improvements and to develop a "data culture" throughout the health system, which is required to translate better health information into better health service management.
Enhancements are already helping to strengthen information systems at the Basic Health Unit, community, and dzongkhag (district) levels, and the project's highly participatory approach is promoting the ownership and sustainability of the HMIS in Bhutan.
To ensure that Bhutan's HMIS is both effective and sustainable, MSH is taking a methodical approach to the project over a two-year period. This began with an exercise to identify key health status, health service, and critical resource indicators required to manage priority health problems. The second phase consisted of a wide-ranging rapid assessment of the existing Health Information System and an assessment of information needs at the district level.
The project's third phase will include redesigning data recording and reporting formats and beginning to computerize key data management procedures at district and national levels. Finally, the project will work with the Ministry of Health and Education to develop effective strategies to roll out the system's improvements and to develop a "data culture" throughout the health system, which is required to translate better health information into better health service management.
Enhancements are already helping to strengthen information systems at the Basic Health Unit, community, and dzongkhag (district) levels, and the project's highly participatory approach is promoting the ownership and sustainability of the HMIS in Bhutan.