[afro-nets] Key issues in health systems: health management information systems (2)

["Peter Burgess" <profitinafrica@gmail.com>]

Key issues in health systems: health management information systems (2)
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Dear Colleagues

I have been directed to have a look at the various postings by ELDIS and indirectly WHO about health management information systems.

One of the things that seems to be missing from all the high end study of health and management is the simplest of elements ... How much is being spent? What is the money being spent on? What results are being achieved?  It is amazing how much is written, and how few financial numbers appear in support of what is being written. Why is this?

Without some clear cost information, the materiality of the effort will never be part of the metric, and big resources will get consumed doing things that are not very important ... and small money that could do a huge amount of good will never get allocated appropriately.

Are there ANY people with some training and experience in cost accounting associated with any of the health management information system initiatives? The broad relief and development sector does not seem to be much further ahead today in understanding of cost / activity / result than it was 50 years ago, and there certainly has been a lot of money disbursed in that period.

The issues of transparency and accountability are talked about more than 20 years ago ... but the practice of transparency and accountability is terribly limited. The reason, in part, is probably that many people don't know how to do it ... and of course, there are also some that certainly would not want this sort of accounting to be applied to what they are doing.

I would like to have the opportunity to talk to people interested in pushing forward into a new era of transparency and accountability.

Any takers?

Peter Burgess
The Transparency and Accountability Network
Tr-Ac-Net Inc in New York +1 212 772 6918
mailto:peterbnyc@gmail.com