Health information systems in developing countries: Case of African countries
Background: In developing countries, health information system (HIS) is experiencing more and more difficulties to produce quality data. The lack of reliable health related information makes it difficult to develop effective health policies. In order to understand the organization of HIS in African countries, we undertook a literature review.
Methods: Our study was conducted using the PubMed and Scopus bibliographic search engines. Our inclusion criteria were: (i) all articles published between 2005 and 2019, (ii) articles including in their titles the keywords "health", "information", "systems", "system", "africa", "developing countries", "santé", "pays en développement", "Afrique", (iii) articles that are written in English or French, (iv) which deals with organizational and technical issues about HIS in African countries.
Results: Fourteen retrieved articles out of 2492 were included in the study, of which 13 (92.9%) were qualitative. All of them dealt with issues related to HIS in 12 African countries. All 12 countries (100.0%) had opted for a data warehouse approach to improve their HIS. This approach, supported by the DHIS2 application, has enabled providing reliable data. However, 11 of the 12 countries (92.0%) were aligned with donors’ strategies and lacked any national strategy.
Conclusion: The current study suggests that the lack of a national health information management strategy will always be a threat to HIS performance in African countries. Ideally, rigorous upstream thinking to strengthen HIS governance should be undertaken by defining and proposing a coherent conceptual framework to analyze and guide the development and integration of digital applications into HIS over the long term.
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Posted 07 Jan, 2021
On 20 Dec, 2020
On 20 Dec, 2020
On 20 Dec, 2020
On 17 Nov, 2020
Received 06 Jul, 2020
On 19 Jun, 2020
Invitations sent on 16 Jun, 2020
On 16 Jun, 2020
On 09 Jun, 2020
On 08 Jun, 2020
On 08 Jun, 2020
On 30 Apr, 2020
Received 29 Apr, 2020
Received 28 Apr, 2020
Received 20 Apr, 2020
On 30 Mar, 2020
On 30 Mar, 2020
On 27 Mar, 2020
Invitations sent on 05 Mar, 2020
On 08 Jan, 2020
On 07 Jan, 2020
On 07 Jan, 2020
On 07 Jan, 2020
Health information systems in developing countries: Case of African countries
Posted 07 Jan, 2021
On 20 Dec, 2020
On 20 Dec, 2020
On 20 Dec, 2020
On 17 Nov, 2020
Received 06 Jul, 2020
On 19 Jun, 2020
Invitations sent on 16 Jun, 2020
On 16 Jun, 2020
On 09 Jun, 2020
On 08 Jun, 2020
On 08 Jun, 2020
On 30 Apr, 2020
Received 29 Apr, 2020
Received 28 Apr, 2020
Received 20 Apr, 2020
On 30 Mar, 2020
On 30 Mar, 2020
On 27 Mar, 2020
Invitations sent on 05 Mar, 2020
On 08 Jan, 2020
On 07 Jan, 2020
On 07 Jan, 2020
On 07 Jan, 2020
Background: In developing countries, health information system (HIS) is experiencing more and more difficulties to produce quality data. The lack of reliable health related information makes it difficult to develop effective health policies. In order to understand the organization of HIS in African countries, we undertook a literature review.
Methods: Our study was conducted using the PubMed and Scopus bibliographic search engines. Our inclusion criteria were: (i) all articles published between 2005 and 2019, (ii) articles including in their titles the keywords "health", "information", "systems", "system", "africa", "developing countries", "santé", "pays en développement", "Afrique", (iii) articles that are written in English or French, (iv) which deals with organizational and technical issues about HIS in African countries.
Results: Fourteen retrieved articles out of 2492 were included in the study, of which 13 (92.9%) were qualitative. All of them dealt with issues related to HIS in 12 African countries. All 12 countries (100.0%) had opted for a data warehouse approach to improve their HIS. This approach, supported by the DHIS2 application, has enabled providing reliable data. However, 11 of the 12 countries (92.0%) were aligned with donors’ strategies and lacked any national strategy.
Conclusion: The current study suggests that the lack of a national health information management strategy will always be a threat to HIS performance in African countries. Ideally, rigorous upstream thinking to strengthen HIS governance should be undertaken by defining and proposing a coherent conceptual framework to analyze and guide the development and integration of digital applications into HIS over the long term.
Figure 1
Figure 2
Figure 3
Figure 4
Figure 5