The health information systems of developing countries have made significant progress these last years. Nowadays, the challenge they are facing is that of their use and of the acknowledgement of their usefulness by all health-system players. The efforts started these last years should continue all the more as the growing attention paid to performance measurement of the social progress made in the context of poverty reduction strategy has led to building selective lists of indicators at the national level. Those national indicators would only be of interest if health information systems are effectively operational.

Access to quality current information and the real ability of players to use the most relevant possible information nonetheless remains the indispensable pre-conditions for rational decision-making.

This book is the translation of the 2005 updated second edition of the book on HIS published in French in 1996 ; it has been elaborated by the team of technical experts of the « Agence Européenne pour le Développement et la Santé (AEDES) » with the support of the « Fondation AEDES pour le Développement et la Santé ». Our intention in this book is to retain a very operational approach by providing those people involved in a health information system with the latest references and practical support in their daily tasks.