Uwe Wahser: Construction of an Adapted Health Information System
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5. Summary and Discussion

This thesis aims at the construction of a health information system for the compilation and presentation of health indicators which are suitable for decision-making. The health information system must support decision-makers in the district health system of the Kabarole district, Uganda. As a result of this, the health information system shall contribute to guarantee the universal coverage of basic health services of the district. The above aim of this thesis targeted a topic in the area of primary health care, which has gained growing attention, since WHO reported of an information deficit in this sector as a main constraint for implementing the primary health care approach in [WHO (1987b)]. Some efforts were undertaken towards an improvement of the situation, such as the teachings in [WILSON and SAPANUCHART (1993)]. But managers in primary health care settings are still more or less left alone with their information needs. Literature agrees that the advantages of computers for data processing in primary health care outweigh their costs. But appropriate software application products for the use in a district health system is not available, although their construction is seen as being feasible.

5.1. Summary

In this thesis the aim was identified as a typical systems engineering project. Because of this the principal phases of systems engineering were described in chapter 2. "Fundamentals". Techniques were collected, which were of importance during the conduction of the project. A multi level model for the description of information systems was presented, qualitative assessment methods were listed and a method for the design of relational data bases was described. The techniques were merged into a methodology for a systems engineering approach in chapter 3. "Methodology". The phases of a systems engineering project were discussed with regard to the expected situation in the Kabarole district health system. Special emphasis was put on the analysis of the existing health information system, based on which the decisions for activities for an improvement had to be taken. Chapter 4. "Realization" discusses the experiences that were made with the methodology. The conducted activities during the systems analysis and the construction of the software application product are the primary topics of the description of the realization. The constructed software application product "Kabarole!" is the most obvious result of the systems engineering project. The need of a high degree of adaptability, which emerged from the results of the systems analysis, forwarded very flexible design of "Kabarole!". It is therefore not only a functioning tool for computer based data processing in the district health system of Kabarole. It can also be regarded as a prototype of a common software application product as demanded in the publications of MOIDU.
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This page was constructed by Uwe Wahser (uwe@wahser.de)
Last Revision: May 1996