Abstract

Good decision making in health sector is very important. As part of strengthening their national health management information systems (HMIS), governments are applying Geographic Information Systems (GIS) to enhance decision making in health management. In Malawi, Ministry of Health and its partners are facilitating the use of GIS. Successful use of GIS is influenced by how it is implemented. This thesis explores data and technical limitations which should be addressed for the implementation of GIS in order to enhance data analysis, interpretation and visualisation in health management. The study was conducted using the case of implementation of District Health Management Information System GIS (DHIS2 GIS) in Malawi. Participant observations, documents and spatial data analysis, and interviews were used to collect data. Properties of boundary objects (modularity, accommodation, abstraction and standardization) and community of practice (CoP) were used to analyse the data and technical limitations. The study found that spatial data collected were not complete for the implementation of DHIS2 GIS; some health facilities and health districts, patient tracking, and population density data were missing. On technical limitations, the study found that: i) it is difficult to visualize data with similar patterns, ii) health facilities or catchment areas with ‘no value’ are not presented on the map, iii) creation of maps is affected by internet speed, and iv) the maps created in DHIS2 GIS cannot display health facilities and features such as roads and rivers when downloaded hence sharing maps offline is difficult. To mitigate some of these limitations, it is recommended that data sharing should be promoted amongst different institutions and HMIS officers should be equipped to be able to collect spatial data for new health facilities. DHIS2 GIS should be upgraded by migrating from DHIS2.21 to newer versions and implementing required functionalities e.g. charts and graphs on maps, DHIS2 Tracker and download tool.

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School	: School of Natural and Applied Sciences
Issued Date	: 2018

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