Hospital information system (HIS)

Why it matters

A public hospital manages patients, beds, staff, stock and money at the same time. When each department keeps its own register, the hospital cannot see its own occupancy, waiting times or stock position. An HIS brings these functions together so that clinical and management staff work from the same information. WHO's Classification of digital interventions, services and applications in health gives ministries and hospitals a common vocabulary for describing which functions such a system covers [1].

Key points

• An HIS usually combines an EHR with admissions, beds and wards, theatres, appointments, laboratory, pharmacy, radiology and billing.
• It differs from a health management information system, which holds aggregate data and indicators for district and national managers [2].
• Reviews of implementations in low resource settings report clinical and administrative benefits alongside challenges of infrastructure, training and sustained funding [3].
• Integration between modules matters more than the number of modules.

In Moana

Moana provides hospital operations for beds and wards, theatres, appointments, referrals, billing and analytics on the same record used by clinicians, the laboratory and the pharmacy.

Sources

1. Classification of digital interventions, services and applications in health, second edition, World Health Organization, 2023
2. OpenHIE health management information system component, OpenHIE, 2024
3. Benefits and challenges of EMR implementations in low resource settings: a state of the art review, BMC Medical Informatics and Decision Making, 2016