Department of Computer Science and Engineering

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Browsing Department of Computer Science and Engineering by Author "Braa, Jørn"

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    Designing and Implementing Hospital Management Information Systems in Developing Countries: Case Studies from Tanzania – Zanzibar
    (2007) Igira, Faraja T; Titlestad, Ola H.; Lungo, Juma H.; Makungu, Asha; Khamis, Maryam M; Sheikh, Yahya; Mahundi, Masoud; Ngeni, Mwana J; Suleiman, Omar; Braa, Jørn
    Research and development projects have shown the need for strengthening hospital management information systems (HMIS) [1][2], but this has proven a difficult task, especially in developing countries [3][4][5]. The hospitals in Zanzibar have experienced problems in collecting and managing health care data due to fragmented structures and lack of standardisation. This paper analyses an on-going participatory design effort involving computer experts, health workers and hospital mangers in joint development of an integrated health information system the hospitals in Zanzibar. The challenges encountered during the process were related to the negotiation of standardised data collection, the busy schedule of health workers hampering a participatory process, the low level of computer knowledge among the health workers, the difficulties of getting correct data from the lower level’s register books, and the continuous process of establishing a culture of information use. Key lessons learned from this case study are the need to provide sufficient time to implement HIS in this context due to the difficulty of health workers and mangers to understand the logics of a computerised information system, which is needed to take full advantage of the technology. A long-term mutual training process where technical and medical/managerial personnel work together on improving information use is proposed to overcome this challenge.
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    Designing and Implementing Hospital Management Information Systems: Experiences from Zanzibar
    (2007) Igira, Faraja; Titlestad, Ola H.; Lungo, Juma H.; Shaw, Vincent; Sheikh, Yahya; Mahundi, Masoud; Suleiman, Omar; Khamis, Maryam M.; Makungu, Asha; Braa, Jørn
    Hospitals in Zanzibar have experienced problems in collecting and managing its health care data. The main problem was lack of standards in data collection and reporting from the wards and clinics. The decisions to improve the information system within the hospitals embarked on a project known as the Health Information Systems Programme (HISP). This paper analyses HISP’s on-going action research and participatory design efforts in the development of an integrated HIS for hospitals in Zanzibar. Key lessons learned are the need for a long term strategy to HIS development, identifying the most important data sets and gather them early on, providing feedback to health workers from an early system implementation stage, the focus should include the source of information and HIS is a developmental activity. At the time of writing this paper there are standardized paper forms for data collection, established reporting routines and a working version of computer software for data storage, analysis and reporting.
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    Implementation of ICTs in Health and Management Information System for Zanzibar
    (2007) Lungo, Juma H.; Sheikh, Yahya; Igira, Faraja; Braa, Jørn; Titlestad, Ola; Mahundi, Masoud; Abubakar, Bakar; Twaakyondo, Hashim M.; Suleiman, Omar
    In November 2004, the Ministry of Health in Zanzibar and itsstakeholders conducted a HMIS review. The results revealed that the HMIS isfragmented and does notsupport datadriven decision-making. To address theseshortcomings, a roadmap towards development of HMIS was agreed as follows: (1)development of essential datasets, (2) developing and implementing a computer database. The decision was to take theDistrict Health Information Software (DHIS)developed by the Health Information System Programme(HISP) and customise it tofit the context in Zanzibar. HISP is a global project using Action research andParticipatory design approaches to empower the emerging local health managementstructures and health workers through improved and locally based information systems in a number of developingcountries. At the time of writing this paper there is essential datasets and an implemented computer database usedfor data storage, analysis and reporting