Information system development in support of national health programme monitoring and evaluation: the case of the Philippines

: The Department of Health of the Philippines has recognized that data collection is an integral part of most, if not all, health service delivery elements of the primary health care approach. Indeed, considerable resources had already been invested in such activities. It had been estimated that up to 25% of local health workers' time was used to record and report data, usually to a higher level. Given that such a substantial proportion of a programme's budget was invested in the data it collected, it was essential that the process should have some tangible benefit. The Department has developed a policy and begun implementing an information support capability aimed at improving the performance of its health programmes at all levels of administration and management. The redesign process began with the Field Health Services Information System (FHSIS), which is responsible for the collection and dissemination of data regarding activities in all public-sector health facilities in the country, with the exception of those taking place on a hospital inpatient basis. This development places the Philippines in a leadership position among governments in overcoming the principal constraint in evaluating the progress towards achieving the goal of health for all by the year 2000, that constraint being inadequate information support to the managerial process.