District Health Information System (DHIS)

Before 1992, there was no any organized system of recording and reporting the data at health facility level. there was also no evidence of service delivery at health facility on district or province level. In 1992-1993, a mechanism of data recording known as Health Management and Information system (HMIS)was developed with focus on maternal and child health. Initially, the data was limited and other aspects of service delivery were missing in the newly introduced system since the data reporting was done manually and there was no software to capture, interpret and disseminate the data.

After the devolution in 2001, Government of Pakistan (GoP) felt need of revamping the centralized information system covering the all first level care facilities (FLCF) also known as primary health care (PHC) facilities. In 2009, after a study on improvement of management information system in health sector by Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA) a new health system called District Health Information system (DHIS) was implemented in Pakistan. In Sindh, DHIS was adopted and implemented by PPHI Sindh for recording and reporting the health services.

DHIS is an organized system of recording and reporting information regarding healthcare service delivery at health facilities and community. In other words, it provides information about performance of health facilities in districts.

To improve the health care services through evidence-based management of services delivery. Improved service delivery will contribute to the improvement of health status of the population.

Data is recorded in different registers and recording formats at health facility or community level. There are 17 different registers to record different services provided on daily basis. For each service there are different registers like OPD register for recording the data of patients and diseases, Family Planning register for recording data of family planning services provided, etc.

At the end of each month, data is compiled from registers at the health facility level in the form of DHIS monthly report form which is submitted at District Health Office (DHO) or PPHI District Office (DO) on the third of every month. From the District Office data uploaded in the online software till the eighth of every month. The data can now be seen and interrelated at district, province and national level to make decisions and planning in accordance with the data.