Pape Gaye, IntraHealth’s president and CEO, discussed the challenges of building sub-Saharan Africa’s capacity in health care and information communication technology (ICT) at the Public Health Informatics conference in Seattle, Washington, on September 19. Gaye spoke as part of the plenary session “Decision Support for Public Health and Policy Development: Building Capacity and Sustainability.”
Gaye explained how IntraHealth’s Human Resources Information System (HRIS) development follows a systems strengthening approach. Gaye highlighted IntraHealth’s role in creating the Capacity Project’s Human Resources for Health Global Resource Center as well as the organization’s growing leadership in Health Workforce Informatics. Gaye suggested several areas for future development, including:
Gaye concluded with the following points:
The Namibia Ministry of Health and Social Services (MoHSS) has made great strides in adopting the Human Resources Information Management System (HRIMS). As of August 2008 there are a number of reports already available for easy access, including:
o Staff member personal and appointment details;
o Alphabetic list of appointed personnel;
o Personnel within a specific age group;
o Personnel to receive bonuses;
o Occupational groups, job categories and post level ranks;
o Summary of post status;
o Job type and salary level/notch representation;
o region/duty station post and appointment totals;
o Job type representation in O/M/A;
o Male/female totals and ratios;
o Age groupings and length in service matrix;
o Workforce profile (contains job types);
o Workforce profile (contains job categories)
Previously, in the paper-based human resources management process, reports of this nature required days, weeks, or months to compile. Now this data are available immediately at any time via any computer with connection to the HRIMS.
For now these reports include only core personal and appointment information captured to date. The capture percentage is higher than 85% of public service health workers and work continues to complete the core details. These reports greatly assist in checking the accuracy and completeness of entered data as the team works to cleanse the system data.
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:
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.