Project Name: DHIS Mobile
Organisation: HISP India
Project Location & Coverage Area: Punjab
Project URL: www.hispindia.org
Area of intervention: Health

DHIS mobile application was found by HISP India for the development related to the focus on a solution for consuming mobile technology to expand the reach of the Health Information System. DHIS Mobile application can be installed in low-end java phones. The software supports two reporting modalities such as aggregate facility reporting and name based or patient based tracking.
The main strength of this application is that they work well even when the phone is offline, which is when the phone has no data connection to the server. It supports health workers to report online or offline data entry and submission of the forms using mobile data (GPRS) or SMS. Data entered during offline mode is stored and can be submitted at a later time. The programme tracking supports the follow up of a patient through a programme such as a mother-child tracking, TB or HIV program. DHIS2 also supports SMS-based functions like sending SMS to individual or groups of health workers or patients to remind them of an upcoming or missed visit, or as part of a general education programme related to a health programme. It also sends SMS for support or feedback purposes and registering and enrolling a patient in a health programme by sending an SMS. It also allows entering individual health data for a patient visit using SMS, and checking the status of a patient’s follow-up using SMS.

Reach & Road Ahead

Department of Health and Family Welfare, Punjab decided to introduced DHIS mobile application for all 5000 health workers across the state, and for this the state bought phones and SIM cards for each health workers. HISP India designed and developed the sub center reporting application
with month and daily report, and installed the application on phones and built capacity of all 5000 health workers. HISP has also plan to implement the system in Andhra Pradesh, where tracking systems have been created for mother care, child immunisation, TB, HIV – all requiring longitudinal name based information support – and plans are afoot to extend to Nutrition Rehablitation Centres and School Health, programmes which have similar needs.