DATA WAREHOUSE APPROACH TO STRENGTHEN ACTIONABILITY OF HEALTH INFORMATION SYSTEMS: EXPERIENCES FROM TAJIKISTAN

Health Information Systems (HIS) in developing countries are notorious for not supporting action - implying the use of information for supporting health management. While authors have identified many reasons for this, we focus on the actionability of the HIS reflected through the data-indicator linkage. The better this link, the stronger will be the actionability of the HIS, which we evaluate through the three item criterion based on completeness, fittingness and actionability. This framework is used to analyze the actionability of the Tajikistan HIS. Furthermore, this paper argues for the value of a data warehouse approach in strengthening the data-indicator linkage. However, the data warehouse is far from being a mere technical artefact, but is something socio-technical; in order to understand it, we draw upon theories of institutions. A key contribution of the paper is in understanding competing institutional logics, and how this requires a sensitive management of the installed base.