DHIS2 (also spelled DHIS 2, formerly District Health Information Software) is a free and
open-source software
Open-source software (OSS) is computer software that is released under a license in which the copyright holder grants users the rights to use, study, change, and distribute the software and its source code to anyone and for any purpose. Op ...
platform for the collection, reporting, analysis and dissemination of aggregate and individual-level data.
The most common use of DHIS2 is for health data, where it can be implemented for individual health programs and/or as a national-scale
Health Management Information System (HMIS). As of 2022, DHIS2 was in use by Ministries of Health in more than 75 low- and middle-income countries (LMICs), with 69 countries using DHIS2 at national scale. Beyond health, DHIS2 is used in sectors such as education, supply chain and logistics, water and sanitation, nutrition and food security, agriculture and land management, and e-governance, among others. DHIS2 is officially recognized as a
Digital Public Good.
Development of the core DHIS2 software is coordinated by th
HISP Centreat the
University of Oslo
The University of Oslo ( no, Universitetet i Oslo; la, Universitas Osloensis) is a public research university located in Oslo, Norway. It is the highest ranked and oldest university in Norway. It is consistently ranked among the top universit ...
(formerly the Health Information Systems Programme), where it is housed within the
Department of Informatics. The DHIS2 project is supported financially by a coalition of global partners, including
NORAD
North American Aerospace Defense Command (NORAD ), known until March 1981 as the North American Air Defense Command, is a combined organization of the United States and Canada that provides aerospace warning, air sovereignty, and protection ...
;
PEPFAR
The United States President's Emergency Plan For AIDS Relief (PEPFAR) is a United States governmental initiative to address the global HIV/AIDS epidemic and help save the lives of those suffering from the disease. Launched by U.S. President Geor ...
;
The Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria
The Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria (or simply the Global Fund) is an international financing and partnership organization that aims to "attract, leverage and invest additional resources to end the epidemics of HIV/AIDS, t ...
;
UNICEF
UNICEF (), originally called the United Nations International Children's Emergency Fund in full, now officially United Nations Children's Fund, is an agency of the United Nations responsible for providing Humanitarianism, humanitarian and Devel ...
;
Gavi, the Vaccine Alliance
GAVI, officially Gavi, the Vaccine Alliance (previously the GAVI Alliance, and before that the Global Alliance for Vaccines and Immunization) is a public–private global health partnership with the goal of increasing access to immunization ...
; the
U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention; the
Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation
The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation (BMGF), a merging of the William H. Gates Foundation and the Gates Learning Foundation, is an American private foundation founded by Bill Gates and Melinda French Gates. Based in Seattle, Washington, it was l ...
; and the University of Oslo. The HISP Centre is an official Collaborating Centre of the
World Health Organization.
DHIS2 software
As a digital solution for data collection and management, DHIS2 can be used for aggregate data (e.g. routine health facility data, staffing, equipment, infrastructure, population estimates, etc.), event data (e.g. disease outbreaks, survey/audit data, patient satisfaction surveys, etc.), and individual-level longitudinal data (e.g. vaccination records, lab sample collection and testing, patient treatment and follow-up, student progress, etc.). The system supports the capture of data linked to any level in an organizational hierarchy at any data collection frequency.
DHIS2 includes built-in tools for analytics, including dashboards, charts, pivot tables and maps. The DHIS2 platform can be extended with custom applications (which can be published and shared through th
DHIS2 App Hub or integrated with third-party software or external data sources through the open
web API
A web API is an application programming interface for either a web server or a web browser. It is a web development concept, usually limited to a web application's client-side (including any web frameworks being used), and thus usually does not in ...
. DHIS2 supports health data standards such as FHIR, SNOMED GPS, LOINC, and ICD-10, as well as the generic ADX format for aggregate data exchange. The DHIS2 data model and platform are generic by design, not specifically tailored to the health context, to facilitate the application of DHIS2 to a variety of use cases.
DHIS2 is a web-based platform. The core software and database are hosted on a server, which can be either physically located in the country of ownership or cloud-based. Users can access the DHIS2 through any modern web browser. In addition, the DHIS2 Capture Android application can be used to collect and update DHIS2 data on mobile devices and tablets that use the Android operating system. When data is entered through the web or Android application, it is synced with the central DHIS2 server for that instance. Each individual instance of the DHIS2 software and the data it contains is locally owned and managed.
DHIS2 includes support for translation and localization, and has already been translated into a number of languages including French, Portuguese, Spanish, Hindi, Vietnamese, Chinese and Norwegian.
DHIS2 software development occurs in 6-month cycles of backend releases, plus periodic patch releases and continuous app releases. Development is coordinated by the HISP Centre according to a collaboratively planned, public roadmap that prioritizes generic improvements that meet country needs.
Uses of DHIS2
Health
DHIS2 is currently in use as a Health Management Information System in more than 75 low- and middle-income countries. 69 of these countries have deployed DHIS2 at national scale. DHIS2 is also used by national health authorities and international health programs and organizations for management of health programs related to specific diseases, such as HIV, TB, and Malaria, among others, as well as for general public health programs such as routine immunization and maternal and child health. In addition, during the
COVID-19 pandemic
The COVID-19 pandemic, also known as the coronavirus pandemic, is an ongoing global pandemic of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) caused by severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2). The novel virus was first identif ...
, 55 countries rapidly deployed or extended DHIS2 for national pandemic response and/or vaccination.
Education
Since 2019, the HISP Centre has worked with six countries to pilot DHIS2 as an
Education Management Information System (EMIS), with financial support from NORAD and GPE/KIX. This use case adapts the core DHIS2 functionality and data model to the eduction sector for such purposes as student and teacher records, school report cards, and resource allocation.
Logistics
DHIS2 is used for health logistics data in more than 20 countries in Africa and Asia, where it serves as a last-mile solution for facility-level data capture for health commodities. Most commonly, this involves regular reporting of aggregate data on stocks and usage of common medical supply items such as vaccines, medications, syringes, etc, which facilitates triangulation of health service and commodity data as well as forecasting. In addition, some countries use DHIS2 for vaccine
cold chain
A cold chain is a low temperature-controlled supply chain network. An unbroken cold chain is an uninterrupted series of refrigerated production, storage and distribution activities, along with associated equipment and logistics, which maintain qu ...
or other electronic
Logistics Management Information System (eLMIS) use cases.
Other uses
As a generic software platform, DHIS2 has been adapted for a variety of use cases both within and beyond the health sector. In addition to the most common uses listed above, examples of known DHIS2 projects include water and sanitation, nutrition and food security, agriculture and land management, and e-governance.
History of DHIS2 development
The original District Health Information Software (DHIS) was developed for three health districts in Cape Town as part of the Health Information Systems Programme (HISP), a collaborative research project between the University of Oslo and the
University of the Western Cape
The University of the Western Cape (UWC) is a public research university in Bellville, near Cape Town, South Africa. The university was established in 1959 by the South African government as a university for Coloured people only. Other un ...
that began in 1994.
DHIS 1.3 and 1.4
The DHIS version 1 series goes back to 1996 and was developed on the
Microsoft
Microsoft Corporation is an American multinational technology corporation producing computer software, consumer electronics, personal computers, and related services headquartered at the Microsoft Redmond campus located in Redmond, Washing ...
Access platform consisting of
VBA for the interface or program logic (front-end),
Access
Access may refer to:
Companies and organizations
* ACCESS (Australia), an Australian youth network
* Access (credit card), a former credit card in the United Kingdom
* Access Co., a Japanese software company
* Access Healthcare, an Indian BPO se ...
as a database (back-end),
Excel
ExCeL London (an abbreviation for Exhibition Centre London) is an exhibition centre, international convention centre and former hospital in the Custom House area of Newham, East London. It is situated on a site on the northern quay of the ...
for reporting and
Windows
Windows is a group of several proprietary graphical operating system families developed and marketed by Microsoft. Each family caters to a certain sector of the computing industry. For example, Windows NT for consumers, Windows Server for serv ...
as the
OS. DHIS 1.4 (from 2005) is a significant overhaul of the version 1.3 database structure, using various output formats for reporting. It bridges the gap between DHIS 1.3 and 2.
DHIS2
DHIS version 2 (from 2004) is a continuation of DHIS version 1 developed on open source Java technologies and available as an online web application. The first release, version 2.0, came in February 2008 after three years of development releases, and the most recent version is 2.39 (as of October 2022). DHIS2 is developed using open-source Java frameworks and tools, such as the
Spring Framework
The Spring Framework is an application framework and inversion of control container for the Java platform. The framework's core features can be used by any Java application, but there are extensions for building web applications on top of the Java ...
,
Hibernate
Hibernation is a state of minimal activity and metabolic depression undergone by some animal species. Hibernation is a seasonal heterothermy characterized by low body-temperature, slow breathing and heart-rate, and low metabolic rate. It most ...
,
Struts2
Apache Struts 2 is an open-source web application framework for developing Java EE web applications. It uses and extends the Java Servlet API to encourage developers to adopt a model–view–controller (MVC) architecture. The WebWork framework ...
,
Maven
MAVEN is an American spacecraft orbiting Mars to study the loss of its atmospheric gases to space, providing insight into the history of
the planet's climate and water. The spacecraft name is an acronym for "Mars Atmosphere and Volatile Evolu ...
, and
JUnit
JUnit is a unit testing framework for the Java programming language. JUnit has been important in the development of test-driven development, and is one of a family of unit testing frameworks which is collectively known as xUnit that originated ...
.
References
{{reflist
External links
DHIS 2 siteVideo on DHIS 2 in Ghana by Norad
Free software programmed in Java (programming language)
Free health care software