Comments for HIS Forum Country Ownership of Health Information Systems

Comment on Home by JigMaster

JigMaster — Fri, 22 Jul 2011 02:56:23 +0000

Just stopping in to say ‘hello there’ and introduce myself. Planning to check things out on this forum.

Comment on Botswana by Anthony Muthomi

Anthony Muthomi — Thu, 09 Jun 2011 15:21:46 +0000

We are looking for sponsors to help install digital signage equipment and content in public health facilities to help effectively diserminate education and information on HIV\AIDS and other health related issues to the local communities.

Comment on Asia Pacific Leadership Forum on Health Information Systems to be held in Manila Philippines June 2011 by Mean Sambath

Mean Sambath — Sat, 05 Mar 2011 12:30:47 +0000

Dear Organizer,
HIS forum is a great forum for HIS implementers and stakeholders to share their practice, lesson learned and key success, each country will present their situation and progress about HIS implementation.
I would propose to include a best practice started from patient data management level to aggregated data at all level of health care system

Thanks
Sambath

Comment on National HIS: Why is Country Ownership So Critical? by Eckhard

Eckhard — Wed, 09 Jun 2010 11:42:27 +0000

Zanda’s comment poses a clear challenge to governments and donors alike – with a good dose of humor. While Captain Kirk and his crew could always escape into virtual reality, turning national HIS into effective tools for decisionmaking requires leadership and action here and now as well as a commitment to the principles of transparency and accountability.

What do our colleagues from countries in the Southern hemisphere think? Do you agree or disagree?

As the saying goes “Information is Power”…or as far as HIS are concerned:
Organized information is strength
Accurate information is essential
Up-to-date, new information is valuable
(Steven Clift, Publicus.net)

Comment on National HIS: Why is Country Ownership So Critical? by Zanda Njosa

Zanda Njosa — Tue, 08 Jun 2010 23:14:07 +0000

One of my favorite TV series used to be the original Star Trek series. In one of classic episode, a man disappears inside the ship and the crew spends the whole episode looking for him without much success. It finally dawns on them that perhaps the missing person does not want to be found! This is my basic philosophy on country ownership and why it is so critical. Developing countries must want to be found! For some reason, the donor community seems to want to believe that developing countries want to indeed strengthen their information systems. This is inspite of insurmountable evidence to the contrary. Information systems imply accountability and good governance. Issues that might actually bring more equity but demand and take away underserved perks from the ruling class. Donors just refuse to realize how much more preferable it is when you are accountable to no one. As long as government officials at the highest level do not buy into this, there will never be country ownership.
By the way, contrast this to how these governments pay attention to election data!