Building Health Management Information Systems in Egypt - PHRplus

necessary for consolidating and comparing data from facilities, districts, and governorates. Only
the MOHP can ensure that personnel in governorate headquarters have received the training they
need to operate the system and to support the personnel in their districts. Finally, independent
monitoring is vital to detect data quality control problems and to identify needs for additional
training, and needs for changes in data collection, entry, and processing procedures. The MOHP is
positioned to apply good data quality control procedures to all governorates uniformly.
There is no department responsible for managing and supporting information technology
in the MOHP headquarters or making sure that information technology in governorate health
directorates is compatible, allocated, and maintained to support the information system. The
MOHP must have the capacity to plan and manage MIS development. No significant investment
in computer hardware and software should be made until a department with this mission formally
exists. There is no evidence that simply supplying information technology will generate such a
department.
Annex D contains a reasonably accurate organizational diagram of MOHP headquarters.
As indicated by the arrows, the Documentation, Information, and Decision Support Center
currently reports to the Preventive Sector, while the Directorate of Planning currently reports to the
Curative Sector. The Department for Follow-Up and Monitoring reports to the Central
Administration for the Minister, but consists of only two persons. Thus three key information
system departments report to different sectors.
A revitalized MIS committee, chaired by Dr. Nabil Nassar, First Undersecretary for
Preventive Care, has been working on these issues since Larson's visit. This has produced a plan
for reorganizing the information system elements of the Ministry. The reorganization elevates the
Documentation, Information, and Decision Support Center, the Directorate of Planning, and the
department of Follow-Up and Monitoring so that they formally report to the Central
Administration of the Minister. It also merges the department of Follow-Up and Monitoring with
the Directorate of Planning, and gives the Directorate of Planning expanded responsibilities that
include planning for all budget chapters. This reorganization is a major step forward. The MOHP
should be given full credit for this initiative.
Several steps might strengthen the reorganization effort. Implied plans call for much
more deployment and use of information technology. USAID has already issued a procurement
for a network server, networking components, and network workstations for MOHP headquarters.
There is no one there to manage or support this system. A separate unit should be created at this
level to manage and maintain this technology. This service unit should support the work of all
other information system components by keeping the computing platform running smoothly. The
unit could be created as a separate department, or as a separate functional unit within the
information services department. Meeting this need is more important than the name of the unit
and whether it exists as a separate department.
Annex D contains a plan similar to that proposed by the MOHP. It shows a Monitoring
and Evaluation Unit independent from Policy and Planning to strengthen its independent mission.
It adds an Information Technology unit. Its mission is to support the continuing and effective use
of information technology by all other units of the MOHP headquarters. It is also responsible for
setting basic technical standards, for communication linkages with the governorates, and for
coordinating with and supporting governorate information centers. The Information Processing
and Dissemination unit is responsible for collecting, validating, and consolidating data from
different parts of the system. It is also responsible for generating and distributing routine reports
to all sectors. Returning again to Figure 3, the Information Processing unit is the middle of the
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