Linking primary care information systems and public health vertical programs in the Philippines: an open-source experience.
Community-based primary care information systems are one of the building blocks for national health information systems. In the Philippines, after the devolution of health care to local governments, we observed "health information system islands" connected to national vertical programs being implemented in devolved health units. These structures lead to a huge amount of "information work" in the transformation of health information at the community level. This paper describes work done to develop and implement the open-source Community Based Health Information Tracking System (CHITS) Project, which was implemented to address this information management problem and its outcomes. Several lessons learned from the field as well as software development strategies are highlighted in building community level information systems that link to national level health information systems.
Herman
Tolentino
T
Medical Informatics Unit, University of the Philippines Manila College of Medicine, Manila, Philippines.
Marcelo
Alvin
A
Marcelo
Portia
P
Maramba
Inocencio
I
D019058:Community Networks / Q000458:organization & administration*; D006801:Humans; D019451:Information Management; D007256:Information Systems / Q000458:organization & administration; D010679:Philippines; D011320:Primary Health Care; D040442:Public Health Informatics / Q000458:organization & administration*; D012984:Software; D018511:Systems Integration