Assessment Of Utilization Of Health Information System At District Level With Particular Emphasis To Hivaids Program In North Gondar Zone Amhara National Regional State
Given the magnitude of health problem in Africa, health services provision is a crucialrncomponent of any national development. To make practical this development, utilization ofrninformation for informed decision-making at all level of data generation must be implementedrnespecially on HIV/ADIS. But studies shows us in Africa, the utilization rate of information at allrnlevels where 10% and 20% in Ghana and Uganda respectively. In the interests of improvingrnhealth sectors, the Ethiopian government has engaged in the sector reform, including a processrnof decentralizing decision-making and budgetary power to the district levels. To facilitaterninformed local decision-making it is not well implemented a health information system to timelyrnand accurately to provide each level of the health sector with the necessary information.rnCross sectional study was conducted from October/2005 -April/2006 to assess utilization ofrnhealth information system in particular on HIV/ADIS at district health level in North Gondar,rnAmhara Regional stated. Quantitative data were collected using pre-tested and standardizedrnquestionnaire. In addition, reviewing of records was done in the units and departments usingrnobservational checklist to supplement quantitative data.rnData was entered, cleaned and analyzed using EPI info and SPSS statically packages.rnDescriptive analysis was done for utilization rate of information for informed decision makingrnby age, sex, and educational level, training, years of service, salary and position in thernorganization. Chi – square test, odds ratio and confidence interval was calculated to show thernassociation between outcome and exposure variables. Logistic regression analysis was done torncontrol confounding effect of each other.rnThe total out come of this research paper was found be the utilization rate of information wasrn22.5% in all the study units and 8% especially in HIV/AIDS units and the generalrnimplementation of health information system was also found to be 12%. The source of data wasrnfound as routine reports, weekly identifiable diseases reports, vertical program reports andrnsometimes survey results. The utilization rate of information was affected by many factors butrnixrnfrom this research only salary and training and Presence of standards data collection methods,rntransmission, processing, and reporting rules was found to be significant at 95 % level ofrnsignificance. So we can conclude that the utilization rate of information and implementation ofrnhealth information system was found to be very low in the study area. We recommend thatrnmotivation of staffs and training of individual and strengthening of Presence of standards datarncollection methods, transmission, processing, and reporting rules should be given attention.