scholarly journals The Economic evaluation of management information system (MIS) in health care management

Author(s):  
Anamika Choudhary

There is undoubtedly a need to efficiently allocate the scarce resources related to health care so that the optimum utilization for the benefit of the society at large can be determined. In this process, the health management system plays an important role. A well-managed data becomes a significant source in making the organization efficient. Economics thus provides health sector a new paradigm- Health Economics. A branch of economics developed as Health economics deals mainly with how the scarce health care resources need to be allocated so as to bring the maximization of the health of the community. For such a decision making, an analytical tool is required which could involve both the cost and the benefit side. Economic evaluation serves such an analytical tool. The present paper focuses on the economic evaluation of the Management Information system (MIS) in Health care Management. MIS calls for such a strategy to effectively organize relevant information in the health care and manage the limited resources with optimization and is therefore considered superior to the traditional paper based system.

2018 ◽  
Vol 6 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Harriet R. Kagoya ◽  
Dan Kibuule

Background: An efficient health management information system (HMIS) improves health care delivery and outcomes. However, in most rural settings in Uganda, paper-based HMIS are widely used to monitor public health care services. Moreover, there are limited capabilities and capacity for quality HMIS in remote settings such as Kayunga district.Objectives: The quality assurance practices of HMIS in health centres (HCs) in Kayunga district were evaluated.Method: A cross-sectional descriptive study design was used to assess the quality of HMIS at 21 HCs in Kayunga district. Data were collected through in-depth interviews of HMIS focal persons as well as document analysis of HMIS records and guidelines between 15 June 2010 and 15 July 2010. The main outcomes were quality assurance practices, the HMIS programmatic challenges and opportunities. The practice of HMIS was assessed against a scale for good quality assurance practices. Qualitative data were coded and thematically analysed, whereas quantitative data were analysed by descriptive statistics using SPSS v22 software.Results: All the 21 HCs had manual paper-based HMIS. Less than 25% of HCs practised quality assurance measures during collection, compilation, analysis and dissemination of HMIS data. More than 50% of HCs were not practising any type of quality assurance during analysis and dissemination of data. The main challenges of the HMIS were the laborious and tedious manual system, the difficulty to archive and retrieve records, insufficient HMIS forms and difficulty in delivering hard copies of reports to relevant stakeholders influenced quality of data. Human resource challenges included understaffing where 43% of participating HCs did not have a designated HMIS staff.Conclusion: The HMIS quality assurance practices in Kayunga were suboptimal. Training and support supervision of HMIS focal persons is required to strengthen quality assurance of HMIS. Implementation of electronic HMIS dashboards with data quality checks should be integrated alongside the manual system.


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