iHRIS training for HRIS point persons from the three pilot states
in Southern Sudan, July 2008.
In the context of post-conflict recovery, the Capacity Project is helping to strengthen the efforts of the Ministry of Health (MOH) to hire and manage Southern Sudan's health workforce and improve access to health information. A national HRIS stakeholder leadership meeting, attended by senior officials from the Ministry and all ten states, resulted in a commitment to establish a national human resources information system (HRIS) that would provide a complete picture of the available health workforce for planning and management.
As an initial step, we assessed HR systems currently in use and restructured an existing Microsoft Access database to minimize errors, increase security and guide the development of a coding system. Local Capacity Project staff worked with the MOH to create standardized data collection forms and collect data on qualified health workers from all health facilities in the ten states.
From the collected data we were able to produce much-needed reports, including staff and health facility lists, retirement statistics and registrations with professional councils. As the first step to a national implementation of an HRIS, we are piloting installed iHRIS Manage in three states; Bahr el Ghazal, Central Equatoria and Upper Nile.
To ensure full participation in the country-wide implementation, we held a workshop for 21 directors and director-generals from all states and the central government, as well as representatives from the World Health Organization and the International Organization for Migration. Participants practiced using data for decision making and agreed to create tools and training materials that will assist country health officers in supervising data collection. These tools will improve data quality and build local capacity for sustaining the system.