DHIS
Encyclopedia
The District Health Information System (DHIS) is a highly flexible, open-source health management information system and data warehouse
. It is developed by the Health Information Systems Programme (HISP) project.
The solution covers aggregated routine data, semi-permanent data (staffing, equipment, infrastructure, population estimates), survey/audit data, and certain types of case-based on patient-based data (for instance disease notification or patient satisfaction surveys). The system supports the capture of data linked to any level in an organisational hierarchy, any data collection frequency, a high degree of customisation at both the input and output side. It has been translated into a number of languages.
The DHIS was originally developed for three health districts in Cape Town
in 1998-99, but has since spread via the HISP network to nearly half of sub-Saharan Africa
, where its use covers a population of 300-400 million people, and to a number of countries in Asia. The initial scope - routine monthly Primary Health Center data – has systematically been expanded to cover nearly all aspects of health data and information (excluding electronic health records). Available aggregated data for South Africa from 1998-2007, for instance, represent close to one billion patient encounters.
For electronic health records, DHIS is collaborating with the WHO
-backed OpenMRS
system.
Access platform consisting of VBA
for the interface or program logic (front-end), Access
as a database (back-end), Excel
for reporting and Windows
as the OS
. DHIS 1.4 is a significant overhaul of the version 1.3 database structure, using various output formats for reporting. It bridges the gap between DHIS 1.3 and 2.0.
alternative to the earlier releases. The software development process is a global collaboration between students, researchers and experienced developers in Norway
, India
, South Africa
, Ethiopia
, Vietnam
and Nigeria
. The first release, version 2.0, came in February 2008 after three years of development releases. DHIS 2 is developed using open-source Java frameworks and tools, such as the Spring Framework, Hibernate
, Struts2, Maven
, and JUnit
.
Data warehouse
In computing, a data warehouse is a database used for reporting and analysis. The data stored in the warehouse is uploaded from the operational systems. The data may pass through an operational data store for additional operations before it is used in the DW for reporting.A data warehouse...
. It is developed by the Health Information Systems Programme (HISP) project.
The solution covers aggregated routine data, semi-permanent data (staffing, equipment, infrastructure, population estimates), survey/audit data, and certain types of case-based on patient-based data (for instance disease notification or patient satisfaction surveys). The system supports the capture of data linked to any level in an organisational hierarchy, any data collection frequency, a high degree of customisation at both the input and output side. It has been translated into a number of languages.
The DHIS was originally developed for three health districts in Cape Town
Cape Town
Cape Town is the second-most populous city in South Africa, and the provincial capital and primate city of the Western Cape. As the seat of the National Parliament, it is also the legislative capital of the country. It forms part of the City of Cape Town metropolitan municipality...
in 1998-99, but has since spread via the HISP network to nearly half of sub-Saharan Africa
Sub-Saharan Africa
Sub-Saharan Africa as a geographical term refers to the area of the African continent which lies south of the Sahara. A political definition of Sub-Saharan Africa, instead, covers all African countries which are fully or partially located south of the Sahara...
, where its use covers a population of 300-400 million people, and to a number of countries in Asia. The initial scope - routine monthly Primary Health Center data – has systematically been expanded to cover nearly all aspects of health data and information (excluding electronic health records). Available aggregated data for South Africa from 1998-2007, for instance, represent close to one billion patient encounters.
For electronic health records, DHIS is collaborating with the WHO
World Health Organization
The World Health Organization is a specialized agency of the United Nations that acts as a coordinating authority on international public health. Established on 7 April 1948, with headquarters in Geneva, Switzerland, the agency inherited the mandate and resources of its predecessor, the Health...
-backed OpenMRS
OpenMRS
is a collaborative open source project to develop excellent software to support the delivery of health care in developing countries. It grew out of the critical need to scale up the treatment of HIV in Africa but from the start was conceived as a general purpose electronic medical record system...
system.
DHIS 1.3 and 1.4
The DHIS was developed on the MicrosoftMicrosoft
Microsoft Corporation is an American public multinational corporation headquartered in Redmond, Washington, USA that develops, manufactures, licenses, and supports a wide range of products and services predominantly related to computing through its various product divisions...
Access platform consisting of VBA
Visual Basic for Applications
Visual Basic for Applications is an implementation of Microsoft's event-driven programming language Visual Basic 6 and its associated integrated development environment , which are built into most Microsoft Office applications...
for the interface or program logic (front-end), Access
Microsoft Access
Microsoft Office Access, previously known as Microsoft Access, is a relational database management system from Microsoft that combines the relational Microsoft Jet Database Engine with a graphical user interface and software-development tools. It is a member of the Microsoft Office suite of...
as a database (back-end), Excel
Microsoft Excel
Microsoft Excel is a proprietary commercial spreadsheet application written and distributed by Microsoft for Microsoft Windows and Mac OS X. It features calculation, graphing tools, pivot tables, and a macro programming language called Visual Basic for Applications...
for reporting and Windows
Microsoft Windows
Microsoft Windows is a series of operating systems produced by Microsoft.Microsoft introduced an operating environment named Windows on November 20, 1985 as an add-on to MS-DOS in response to the growing interest in graphical user interfaces . Microsoft Windows came to dominate the world's personal...
as the OS
Operating system
An operating system is a set of programs that manage computer hardware resources and provide common services for application software. The operating system is the most important type of system software in a computer system...
. DHIS 1.4 is a significant overhaul of the version 1.3 database structure, using various output formats for reporting. It bridges the gap between DHIS 1.3 and 2.0.
DHIS 2
DHIS 2 is an open sourceOpen source
The term open source describes practices in production and development that promote access to the end product's source materials. Some consider open source a philosophy, others consider it a pragmatic methodology...
alternative to the earlier releases. The software development process is a global collaboration between students, researchers and experienced developers in Norway
Norway
Norway , officially the Kingdom of Norway, is a Nordic unitary constitutional monarchy whose territory comprises the western portion of the Scandinavian Peninsula, Jan Mayen, and the Arctic archipelago of Svalbard and Bouvet Island. Norway has a total area of and a population of about 4.9 million...
, India
India
India , officially the Republic of India , is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by geographical area, the second-most populous country with over 1.2 billion people, and the most populous democracy in the world...
, South Africa
South Africa
The Republic of South Africa is a country in southern Africa. Located at the southern tip of Africa, it is divided into nine provinces, with of coastline on the Atlantic and Indian oceans...
, Ethiopia
Ethiopia
Ethiopia , officially known as the Federal Democratic Republic of Ethiopia, is a country located in the Horn of Africa. It is the second-most populous nation in Africa, with over 82 million inhabitants, and the tenth-largest by area, occupying 1,100,000 km2...
, Vietnam
Vietnam
Vietnam – sometimes spelled Viet Nam , officially the Socialist Republic of Vietnam – is the easternmost country on the Indochina Peninsula in Southeast Asia. It is bordered by China to the north, Laos to the northwest, Cambodia to the southwest, and the South China Sea –...
and Nigeria
Nigeria
Nigeria , officially the Federal Republic of Nigeria, is a federal constitutional republic comprising 36 states and its Federal Capital Territory, Abuja. The country is located in West Africa and shares land borders with the Republic of Benin in the west, Chad and Cameroon in the east, and Niger in...
. The first release, version 2.0, came in February 2008 after three years of development releases. DHIS 2 is developed using open-source Java frameworks and tools, such as the Spring Framework, Hibernate
Hibernate (Java)
Hibernate is an object-relational mapping library for the Java language, providing a framework for mapping an object-oriented domain model to a traditional relational database...
, Struts2, Maven
Apache Maven
Maven is a build automation and software comprehension tool. While primarily used for Java programming, it can also be used to build and manage projects written in C#, Ruby, Scala, and other languages. Maven serves a similar purpose to the Apache Ant tool, but it is based on different concepts and...
, and JUnit
JUnit
JUnit is a unit testing framework for the Java programming language. JUnit has been important in the development of test-driven development, and is one of a family of unit testing frameworks collectively known as xUnit that originated with SUnit....
.