This community innovation has been accepted at the 2026 DHIS2 Annual Conference and will be included a session.
Leveraging DHIS2 Tracker for Primary Care
The implementation of person centered, point of service digital solutions for primary health care settings is increasingly recognized as a priority in low resource settings (WHO, 2023), primarily driven by persisting gaps in care quality (Kruk et al., 2018). This abstract describes the experience of the Syrian Arab Red Crescent (SARC) and the Norwegian Red Cross (NoRC), in leveraging Tracker as a lightweight patient record to support primary care delivery. Tracker was configured as the core clinical module, capturing clinical encounters, diagnoses, treatments, referrals, and follow up within a single longitudinal record across all PHC service points. The system also integrated nutrition, rehabilitation, mental health, community based programs and stock management module, to support both facility and community level care. The configuration demonstrated that DHIS2 Tracker can function as a lightweight electronic medical record with meaningful utility for clinicians, particularly in supporting standardized clinical documentation and continuity of care across multiple service delivery points. Tracker enabled clinicians to capture core patient data consistently, facilitating follow up, referral tracking, and longitudinal record availability in resource constrained and decentralized settings. However, its design remained largely oriented toward documentation and reporting rather than active point of care clinical workflows. Patient level UI were not optimally structured for clinical decision making, with limited support for problem lists, concise patient summaries, or longitudinal visualization of key clinical indicators such as vital signs. Pharmacy workflows were similarly constrained, as prescription entry and dispensing processes were not seamlessly integrated, limiting usability for prescribers and dispensers. Additionally, patient search functionality was basic, lacking multi field or partial match capabilities, which increased the risk of duplicate records.
Primary Author: Mikael Hailu
Keywords:
Lightweight Electronic Medical Record, Clinical Documentation, Point-of-Care Workflows
2 Likes