CASE STUDY Health Information Systems in South Africa Hospitals and health workers have long recognized tests and information on stocks of drugs and other the importance of good information. A knowledge treatments in hospitals are also recorded, as is data of diagnoses made by doctors in the past, and a on patient deaths. The system includes a variety of record of treatments that were given to patients ways to view all of this including charts and graphs. along with the outcomes, all help to create the Geographic features that allow users to view maps most promising treatment plans for future patients of hospitals and to visualize the catchment areas for Information on the geography of health problems each are also available. All of this is seen through a also helps to create a national strategy that can be clear, easy to navigate, information dashboard used to make health-related decisions and plan One important but previously often overlooked responses to disease outbreaks. The data may even feature that is included in DHIS2 is social net- be used to predict and prevent those outbreaks. working. In other words, DHIS2 allows for com- South Alrica's Health Information Systems Pro- munication between users. This often encourages gram is a not-for-profit non-governmental organiza knowledge sharing and means that health profes- tion that aims to empower healthcare workers and sionals do not have to work in isolation. Patients too decision makers to improve the coverage, quality and are realizing the importance of sharing their data. efficiency of health services through the use of open For instance, in a case unrelated to the HIS pro- standards and data exchange mechanisms. They gram, South African members of PatientsLikeMe subscribe to an open source philosophy, freely shar recently contributed to an online survey of drug ing their training materials and software solutions use which gave health professionals vital informa- Their staff members include nine software devel tion. PatientsikeMe is a web-based community of opers and ten database administrators who creato patients who compare the treatments they receive web-based and mobile solutions. This use of web and discuss their symptoms and experiences. The standards means that their software will run on most goal is for patients to support each other and to use operating systems and on most devices, which the data generated to develop new treatment plans means there will be fow, if any, access problems using cutting edge analytics. Towards that goal, in One of the main systems, called DHIS2, is used to 2016 the NHS in the UK gave a company owned collect a range of data. This includes case-based by Google access to 1.6 million patients from three data from in-patient admissions, essentially record hospitals. One of the goals is to develop software ing the who, what, when and where of patients boing to stort staff to patients at risk of deterioration and seen. Dat is also stored on disease outbreaks and death through kidney failure. However, local papers responses New mothers and young children are have reported that some patients are concerned soon as being particularly vulnerable, and so data about privacy and sharing sensitive data with a pri is stored to improve their care. The results of lab vate company Questions: 1. What devices could be used to collect health information and what are the advantages and disadvantages of each? I 2. Why are patients concerned with sharing sensitive data with a private company?