Health Information Systems

National-scale health information systems are receiving increasing attention as a necessary component of HIV care and treatment scale-up. As the Emergency Plan is able to provide treatment and care to larger numbers of patients and for longer periods of time, many of these patients, who were initially seen at large tertiary hospitals, are being pushed out to newer, lower-capacity primary care facilities. Further, even if patients continue to be seen at only one facility, the life-long nature of HIV treatment will require access to records generated over many years.

To assure continuity of care to these patients, as well as to not double count them, methods must be adopted and refined for tracking patient information within and across facilities, including within settings in which information and communication technology (ICT) infrastructure is inadequate or non-existent. A number of technologies and approaches are needed for this.

The workshop provides an opportunity for participants to learn from industry experts, from the workshop’s country case studies, and from each other, best practices in developing strategies for building national-scale, longitudinal, patient-level electronic patient monitoring systems for HIV treatment and care in PEPFAR countries.