Before HRIS strengthening in Uganda
After HRIS strengthening in Uganda
In Uganda, the Ministry of Health and four Health Professional Councils needed to know which health professionals were licensed to work in the country, what training they had received, if they were leaving the health workforce and, if so, why. Although a complex system of paper forms was in place, there was no way to aggregate or analyze the information, and indeed, it was very difficult just to track down one health worker's current name, address or licensing information.
Working closely with the Health Workforce Advisory Board - a stakeholder leadership group comprised of members from several departments in the Ministry of Health, the four health professional councils, training institutions and nongovernmental organizations - the Capacity Project developed iHRIS Qualify, a registration and licensing system that tracks health professionals such as nurses from the time they enter pre-service training until they leave the health workforce.
iHRIS Qualify was installed in all four professional health councils: Nurses and Midwives Council, Medical and Dental Council, Pharmacy Council and Allied Health Professional Council. Data on all licensed health workers were entered, and local staff was trained on how to produce reports, maintain and customize the software. The councils are now able to provide routine reports that show a complete picture of the country's qualified health workers. They can more easily access and update information, track the number of health workers by cadre, verify licenses and practice requirements and ensure new hires are properly qualified. The councils also share their data with the Ministry of Health and Ministry of Education to better inform management decisions. This information is now influencing funding for pre-service education as well as workforce projections. In addition, the iHRIS Qualify data is contributing to a national biannual report on human resources for health.
The Capacity Project also customized and installed iHRIS Manage, the Project's HR management software, at the central Ministry of Health and in nine districts. Data from iHRIS Manage will be used for HR decision-making, such as recruitment at the central and district level.
Uganda is committed to continuing to strengthen HRIS and using information to make decisions about the health workforce. This dedication was demonstrated in July 2009, when the Uganda Ministry of Health's Resource Center launched its Vision 2012 - a framework for developing and implementing a national health information system (NHIS). HRIS was included among the e-health systems encompassed by the NHIS.
HRIS strengthening work transitioned to the Uganda Capacity Program (UCP), a five-year Capacity Project Associate Award, in November of 2009. The new program continues to support iHRIS Qualify at the councils and plans to expand iHRIS Manage to all of the country's 85 districts. As partnership and collaboration are important to the UCP implementation strategy, a Year One activity involved partnering with the World Health Organization to implement iHRIS Manage in ten additional districts. The UCP is currently working with other partners to support rolling the system out to additional districts.
As more districts gain access to iHRIS Manage, it is important to ensure data is kept up-to-date and regularly shared with the MOH. To this end, a new online site - National iHRIS Manage - was recently created at the MOH to eventually host all the district iHRIS Manage data. The MOH, with support from the UCP, is planning a routine data validation procedure to ensure data on the site will be accurate. This will involve sending reports from the National iHRIS Manage site to each district for verification.
Once all the districts are connected and data is shared with the MOH, Uganda's health policy makers will be able to use the iHRIS Qualify and iHRIS Manage software to quickly access comprehensive and up-to-date data on the country's current and available health workforce.
Read Uganda news from our blog.
Watch a recent video about HRIS in Uganda and check out the related publication in English or in French.