A surveillance information system as a management tool: a report from Papua New Guinea

Gilbert Hiawalyer ()

International Journal of Public Health, 2005, vol. 50, issue 1, S31-S32

Abstract: To have a very good surveillance system, it is paramount important to have a functional health information system that could be easily used for monitoring and investigation of disease outbreaks. In Papua New Guinea (PNG) a national health information system was developed, trailed and implemented nationwide. Furthermore to have the system working linked to it must be the local health system for sustainability and control. A public health manual for disease surveillance in PNG was developed and is now being used for surveillance. This paper describes how the health information system, particularly surveillance system was developed and implemented on the national scale, how it was integrated with other management information systems and how information has been used to support management decision-making and informed policy decision. It will highlight some of the hurdles that it has encountered while trying to implement the system. PNG has one of the best national health information system as compared to many developing countries but limited information generated from the system. There was also less feedback from all levels of the health sector. We need to improve surveillance on the basic principles of integration, focus, and sharing of work. There must be an appropriate and timely response and feedback. We need to improve on the current system rather than building a new one. Copyright Birkhäuser Verlag, Basel 2005

Keywords: Surveillance; Disease outbreaks; Papua New Guinea (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2005
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
http://hdl.handle.net/10.1007/s00038-005-4077-3 (text/html)
Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:spr:ijphth:v:50:y:2005:i:1:p:s31-s32

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
http://www.springer.com/economics/journal/00038

DOI: 10.1007/s00038-005-4077-3

Access Statistics for this article

International Journal of Public Health is currently edited by Thomas Kohlmann, Nino Künzli and Andrea Madarasova Geckova

More articles in International Journal of Public Health from Springer, Swiss School of Public Health (SSPH+)
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Sonal Shukla () and Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing ().