iCHIS is a community-based information system that was developed to have integrated community health service delivery, standardized guidance on clinical decision-making, manage longitudinal health data records, provide multi-level access to data, provide patient-level data analytics, and ensure system interoperability. This was based on the national community health strategy (2017-2022).
iCHIS implementation will cover the whole country, this will be done in phases. Currently (May 2022) it has been deployed to four districts namely: Kasungu, Balaka, Machinga and Salima. Kasungu and Salima are in the Central region; whilst Balaka and Machinga are in the Southern region.
Challenges
iCHIS is mostly used in communities and data is captured using mobile devices. These devices require connectivity to sync data. However, in most catchment areas, there is intermittent connectivity. Additionally, there is a high cost of airtime for connectivity.
Interventions
One of the interventions for iCHIS is to ensure that it works both online and offline, allowing for data to be synched at a later stage.
- User involvement is a key ingredient to system success
- Training users should start as early as possible
