DHIS2 is most widely used as an integrated health information platform, facilitating holistic data management across programs to provide decision makers at all levels with the right data, at the right time, to make the right decisions
DHIS2 is the world’s largest Health Management Information System (HMIS), used by Ministries of Health in more than 80 countries to manage routine health data from local to national scale. Many countries also use DHIS2 to create and maintain individual health records, including patient monitoring and follow-up, case-based disease surveillance, immunization registries, and more. Within DHIS2, data from all of these programs is collected into one health intelligence platform — accessible at all levels of the health system — where it can be used for planning, monitoring and evaluation, budgeting, operational decision making, and patient follow up.
Since 2017, the HISP Centre at the University of Oslo (HISP UiO) — which develops and supports DHIS2 — has been officially designated as a WHO Collaborating Centre for innovation and implementation research on health system strengthening. Through this collaboration, we produce practical implementation products and tools as part of the DHIS2 Health Data Toolkit, helping countries adopt and implement the WHO’s routine health information system standards for data analysis. In addition, we collaborate with other global health partners such as UNICEF and US CDC on the design and implementation of features, configurations, and guidance to support a range of disease programs.
This page provides high-level information about some of the applications of DHIS2 as an integrated health information platform, as well as links to additional resources.
A health management information system supports reporting, planning, management & decision-making in the health sector. The HMIS typically generates key indicators for routine monitoring of health sector strategies and health program performance, and helps inform policy making, quality improvement and resource allocation. DHIS2 responds to HMIS needs at every level of the health system – from data collection by frontline health workers to data analysis by national program staff and policy planners – and supports an integrated approach to health information management that reduces duplicative reporting and helps break down data silos.
DHIS2 is widely used for managing individual-level patient and client data. Through DHIS2 Tracker programs, Ministries of Health and other organizations can easily collect and manage key information for individuals for one or more health programmes over time. This includes using DHIS2 as a digital registry, as a shared health record, and as a facility-level Electronic Medical Record (EMR) for primary healthcare. Due to the flexible, modular nature of DHIS2, these do not need to be thought of as separate systems–they can each be employed within the same national DHIS2 architecture, and deployed at different scales and in different geographies or contexts depending on the needs of the health system. DHIS2’s interoperability tools also make it possible to automatically integrate data from Laboratory Information Systems, national CRVS registries, ICD-11 codes, and other sources into electronic records in DHIS2.
DHIS2 supports a comprehensive suite of software features, implementation tools, and guidance to help countries adopt WHO recommended strategies for integrated disease surveillance using DHIS2 as an electronic platform. The platform can be further extended and adapted to support emergency response activities, including establishing real-time emergency surveillance during pandemics, outbreaks, natural disasters, and humanitarian crises, as well as monitoring the impact of emergencies on essential health services.
Campaign interventions complement routine service delivery and play a key role in distributing life-saving commodities like bednets, conducting mass drug administration for the elimination of neglected tropical diseases, and increasing coverage of under-immunized communities and zero-dose children. The DHIS2 toolkit for health campaigns, developed with inputs from the Campaign Digitization Working Group, provides guidance on configuring and using DHIS2 for real-time monitoring of campaign activities and triangulating campaign data with other routine data sources to improve targeting of health interventions.
Community health workers (CHWs) extend the reach of the health system to provide critical interventions such as health education, prevention and service delivery to the last mile. Integrating community health data with routine service delivery from health facilities is critical for providing decision makers with a comprehensive picture of disease burden, mortality, and ultimately to measure achievements toward universal health coverage with a focus on the most vulnerable and hardest-to-reach populations. The DHIS2 Android app supports CHWs with an offline tool to plan daily activities, record and track services provided, conduct household surveys and more.
Mortality surveillance is essential for helping Ministries of Health understand the leading causes of death and make strategic decisions about planning and resource allocation. DHIS2 helps countries collect and classify causes of death with tools aligned to the WHO’s Medical Certificate of the Cause of Death (MCCOD) and ICD-11, and offers modules for rapid mortality surveillance, integration of verbal autopsy data, and triangulation with deaths reported from facilities through vertical programs. Meanwhile, improved civil registry and vital statistics (CRVS) data helps provide accurate denominators that are critical for meaningful analysis of health outcome indicators. Through its interoperability features, DHIS2 supports strengthening national CRVS systems by integrating birth and death notifications from health facilities.
The widespread adoption of DHIS2 by health workers at facility level has enabled digitization of stock data to the last mile of service delivery. Facility stock reporting through DHIS2 provides visibility into the availability of essential medicines, allowing health planners to monitor stock levels, triangulate commodity data with routine service delivery information, and more effectively distribute and redistribute stock items to improve access. When used in conjunction with an upstream eLMIS, DHIS2 provides countries with end-to-end visibility across the entire national supply chain.
Health Intelligence describes how countries and organizations can leverage available data to improve individual and population health by drawing on traditional forms of data analysis as well as cutting edge approaches like machine learning and AI. Health Intelligence Centers (HIC) are designed to operationalize health intelligence approaches in a command center setting, providing a centralized platform for processing, integrating, triangulating, and analyzing real-time and routine health data. DHIS2 can power health intelligence as a standalone platform, or serve as a key component of an integrated health intelligence architecture.
The potential effects of climate change touch every part of life on our planet, including human health. In many health programs – such as infectious disease surveillance, maternal and child health, nutrition, and more – health outcomes can be directly and indirectly impacted by climate variation and extreme weather events like floods and heat waves. DHIS2 for Climate & Health leverages the widespread adoption of DHIS2 as an HMIS and enhances these systems through the integration of climate, weather, and environmental data and the incorporation of flexible and user-friendly tools for predictive modeling and forecasting of climate-sensitive diseases and other health impacts.
DHIS2 provides a platform for cross-sectoral collaboration from communities to national and global levels, supporting a unified approach to improving the health of people, animals and the environment. Bringing data together across sectors and sources advances One Health approaches. Making these data accessible in DHIS2 helps governments, partners and communities to address key issues like emerging infectious diseases and zoonoses, antimicrobial resistance, food security, and climate change.
Explore some of the features and capabilities of DHIS2 as an integrated platform for health program management in our interactive demo.
Through our collaboration with WHO, UNICEF, US CDC, Africa CDC, and other global health partners, we develop implementation toolkits tailored to common public health use cases to accelerate country implementation and strengthen national health information systems. The DHIS2 Health Data Toolkit is a collection of resources that includes system design and configuration guides, software feature documentation, tailored training materials, user guides, and reference metadata. Browse resources by health area or explore the implementation guidance for health.
DHIS2 is used for health programs at national scale around the world. Explore the map below to learn how countries are leveraging DHIS2 to strengthen health information systems.
National Ministries of Health, regional organizations, and NGOs around the world are using DHIS2 to strengthen health program management to support better population health outcomes. Read a selection of stories below, or explore the full collection of DHIS2 health impact stories.
The DHIS2 Health team works together with WHO, UNICEF, US CDC, Africa CDC, and other organizations to ensure that the DHIS2 platform meets the health program needs, and to develop standards and guidance based on global best practices. Our work in the health domain is also supported by a coalition of global health partners, including Norad, the Global Fund, Gavi, and the Gates Foundation.
