The Where We Are Working section of this website has been updated with four new stories about our HRIS strengthening work. Read about how we are:
Southern Sudan is taking important first steps toward the national implementation of iHRIS Manage, the Capacity Project’s human resources (HR) management software. The software will be installed in HR offices in Central Equatoria, Western Bahr al Ghazal and Upper Nile in the upcoming weeks. In preparation, HR officers and HR information systems point persons from each of the three states attended a three-day training session on the system and learned how to enter data and produce reports.
To ensure full participation in country-wide implementation, the Project also held a workshop for 21 directors and director generals from all ten states and the central government, along with representatives from WHO and the International Organization for Migration. Participants reviewed data flow, and used their own health workforce data (collected with support from the Project earlier this year) to practice using data for decision making. An important outcome of this workshop was the decision to create a data collection tool and training materials to assist county health officers in supervising data collection at the health facilities. These tools will help to improve data quality and also build local capacity for sustaining the software.
Capacity Project HRIS staff recently traveled to Southern Sudan and met with the newly appointed MOH undersecretary and HR director general to brief them on the status of implementing a national HRIS. They discussed how information should flow from health facilities to the states and then on to the central HRIS located in the MOH. A team of local Project and MOH staff recently finished collecting data on qualified health workers from all health facilities in the ten states. Visiting Project staff worked with the local team to clean the data, select HR indicators (based on the country’s strategic health plan) and develop reports including staff and health facility lists, retirement statistics and registration with professional councils. The reports were presented to MOH managers, who provided feedback for refinement. Next steps are to complete data entry and link the HRIS to other existing systems, such as the monitoring and evaluation system located in the Research and Planning Directorate. Southern Sudan will then have a complete picture of the available health workforce for planning and management.
What is happening with HRIS Strengthening? Get news about our ongoing work in the field, find out when new features and releases of the software are available, learn more about human resource information systems, and join the conversation. Your comments and questions are welcome.