Developing health information systems in developing countries: Lessons learnt from a longitudinal action research study in Vietnam

Abstract

Designing and implementing health information systems (HISs) in developing-country settings is challenging. Many HISs do not go beyond the pilot stage and tend to vanish when external funding is over. In other cases, multiple fragmented HISs remain, but these are unable to talk to each other. And more often than not, data collected by HISs are not used in decision making. To better understand and address these problems, this article employs an information infrastructure (II) perspective and views HISs as parts of larger and complex social-technical networks. This article contributes to the current knowledge with a set of rich empirical descriptions of the design and implementation of HISs in Vietnam. Theoretically, it contributes to II discussions in the information systems domain by presenting four design problems and suggesting five design principles and 15 design rules to meet them. These design principles and rules also offer practical guidance for managers and designers involved in the design and implementation of HISs in developing countries.