News & Updates

IntraHealth invests in iHRIS and a full spectrum of digital solutions to support universal health access. Learn more about our progress through our news and updates.

HRIS Assessment and Workforce Planning Workshops

We are gearing up for two major workshops we are holding next week at the World Bank in Washington, D.C. Both workshops are bringing together experts in health workforce planning and human resource information systems, and the results of both should greatly enhance our HRIS Strengthening program. The first workshop, on December 11-12, is the initial meeting of the PEPFAR HRIS Inventory Project Working Group. This workshop will kick off an effort...

From Data to Decisions: Synthesis of Information

The DDDM workshop in Uganda this summer provided the first opportunity for many of the participants to review and discuss reports from the iHRIS Qualify system in the Nurses and Midwives Council. Dr. Pamela McQuide, HRIS leader, said she was extremely excited about participants’ reactions to seeing the reports. “When participants had actual Ugandan data, they erupted in discussion,” she said. She explained that the reports spurred lots of...

Dr. Invocaviths Swai, HRIS Champion

Dr. Invocaviths Swai joined the IntraHealth/Capacity Project Tanzania team in September, as an HR Specialist seconded to the Ministry of Health and Social Welfare (MoHSW). With the Ministry’s five year Human Resources for Health Strategic Plan (HRSP) recently approved, he believes his new position came at the right time. Dr. Swai brings a unique skill set to the HR Specialist position. He is a medical doctor and a community health specialist who...

Improvements Made to Swaziland's Human Resources Information Systems

In the latest phase of the Capacity Project’s HRIS development for the Swaziland Ministry of Health and Social Welfare (MOHSW), the Project obtained final approval from the Ministry of Public Service to get regular updates from the main government HR system. This means that staff from the MOHSW’s personnel unit can now directly download the data that they need at any time. Additionally, the Project completed a data-cleaning exercise, getting...

What's Next for iHRIS? Health Workforce Planning Software

All of us on the iHRIS development team have been pleased with the response we've received to our first two offerings in Open Source human resource information systems: iHRIS Manage and iHRIS Qualify . Each system strives to fill a gap in the data collection and storage toolkit for human resource for health (HRH) workers. iHRIS Manage stores data on all health workers employed by a Ministry of Health or other organization, enabling the HR...

A Global Health Perspective on Open Source

As a registered nurse with years of international experience in social policy and human resources management, I find the prospect of using Open Source systems for health care extremely exciting. Over the years I have seen other types of technology programs in Africa fizzle after projects ended or the funding ran out. An expensive liability is outdated software that cannot be modified or tailored to meet expanding requirements in countries...

From Data to Decisions: The Journey

Once data is available from an HRIS, how can it be used effectively to make decisions? Part of our HRIS Strengthening process is to help managers and policy makers in the countries we work develop necessary skills and techniques for data-driven decision making (DDDM). To achieve this, the Capacity Project is planning a series of DDDM workshops. This past summer, HRIS leaders teamed up with Ummuro Adano, Senior HR Systems Advisor for the Capacity...

HR Information Systems Move Ahead in Zanzibar

Zanzibar’s Minister of Health and Social Welfare, Sultan M. Mugheiry, expressed his thanks and support for the Capacity Project’s human resources information systems (HRIS) strengthening activities, during a recent meeting with the Project’s HRIS team members. The team made significant progress in October, installing a learning version of the Project’s iHRIS Manage software at the Ministry of Health (MOH) and training several staff members to use...

Geeks, Suits, and the Case for Open-Source Software

“Am I a geek, or a suit?” I pondered, sitting in a large hall with some thousand others in Victoria, Canada, during the Free and Open Source Software for Geospatial (FOSS4G ) conference. The question was posed to me by keynote speaker Damian Conway , PERL enthusiast, frequent speaker at FOSS conferences, and management consultant. I wondered to what extent my fellow conference-goers were pondering the same question. Looking around me at the...

Capacity Project Approach to HR Information Systems Presented in China

As part of the Capacity Project’s global leadership in human resources information systems (HRIS) strengthening, HRIS team leader Dykki Settle presented an overview of the Project’s approach and demonstrated the Project’s iHRIS software suite at the second annual Asia-Pacific Action Alliance for Human Resources for Health (AAAH) Conference in Beijing (October 12-14). The conference was attended by human resources for health (HRH) leaders from 15...