This community innovation has been accepted at the 2026 DHIS2 Annual Conference as a digital poster.
Making Health Data Governance Measurable
Ethiopia’s “Information Revolution” (IR) agenda aims to fundamentally transform health data governance by prioritizing digitization and information utilization in three core areas M&E structure, Data Quality, and Data Use. Previously, health institutions reported only summary IR scores to the national level. This approach masked underlying bottlenecks, made it difficult to validate self-reported performance, and enabled inconsistent or inaccurate reporting, thereby constraining the Ministry of Health’s ability to implement targeted, evidence-based improvements. To address this, the Ministry of Health integrated detailed IR self-assessment composite score-based checklists directly into the national DHIS2 v40 instance. This implementation digitizes the regulatory framework for four distinct tiers of the health system: health posts, health centers, hospitals, and woreda health offices. By embedding these checklists into DHIS2, the system now maintains a comprehensive audit trail and visualizes detailed performance metrics alongside routine health data. This initiative demonstrates the power of DHIS2, capable of supporting not just service delivery but also institutional governance and accountability. The shift from aggregate scoring to detailed internal benchmarking enables traceable assessment inputs, improves measurement accuracy, reduces errors in data quality and use, and supports targeted corrective actions. Maintaining this governance mechanism within the national DHIS2 instance strengthens regulatory ownership, standardization, and long-term system sustainability.
Primary Author: Mesoud Mohammed
Keywords:
Information Revolution, Governance, Data Quality, Assessment
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