The critical issues affecting the introduction of Health Management Information Systems in developing countries in Africa

In Tanzania, Mali, Zambia and Uganda information systems are being introduced in hospitals in the form of health management information systems. But with a lack of relevant research done in these countries about the introduction of technologies like information systems there is not much to go by.

The International Institute for Communication and Development (IICD) works in nine countries in Africa and Latin America. IICD has since 1998 been supporting partner organizations with the introduction of Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) for development and poverty alleviation, amongst others in the health sector. For the past years they have been supporting projects in Mali, Tanzania, Uganda and Zambia implementing systems into healthcare.

IICD sees the importance of a decentralized system for health information management and wants to take stock of the achievements of projects that have been implementing information systems, gather experiences and lessons learned and identify challenges for introducing and using information system (IS) in healthcare.

This is why together with IICD this research wants to identify the issues that have to be considered when implementing information systems in the form of a health management information system in hospitals on the district level in the countries supported by IICD. This in support of the belief that a convincing and operational framework for assessing health system performance is vital for the work of governments, development agencies and multilateral institutions.