dhis2-users team mailing list archive

[Bob Jolliffe <bobjolliffe@xxxxxxxxx>]

Interesting set of points raised by all.  Personally I think the rationale
behind the district focus of the system, creating tight feedback loops for
district managers to be able to act locally is as important now as it ever
was.  Even though the challenge of creating and sustaining a culture of
information use at district level remains the most significant and most
elusive we shouldn't forget it as we find ourselves engaged with the
challenges of RAM, disk speed and server hosting.  Hence, also with Ola's
impassioned insistence, I have tried to maintain the mydatamart as well as
possible, though it has of late become increasingly difficult.  (As an
aside I would like to convene a rethink of the mydatamart strategy going
forward, particularly in light of the new analytics and much improved web
api that we have now and didn't have when this work started.)

I believe the changing architectural "shape" of the application does carry
the risk of undervaluing role of the district.  Contrary to Prosper's
suggestion, the new architecture - national, web-based, potentially even
supra-national - is very much more centralized than before.  With
facilities increasingly being able to report their data directly, the
information flows potentially bypass the district completely.  Maintaining
"District" in the name provides implementors and developers with a clue -
or perhaps a strong jiminy cricket guilty concience reminder - of how the
system should be setup and used.

At least until we come up with a new Alma Ata ... where health information
perhaps gets replaced by health insurance :-(

I had always thought the 'S' was for system.  Obviously I didn't look
closely enough.

Cheers
Bob



On 2 May 2013 14:24, Lars Kristian Roland <lars@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:

> As an example of an abbreviation that has changed meaning, I would mention
> GSM, which I believe first meant Group Speciale Mobile (excuse my french)
> and later Global System for Mobile communication.
>
> I would support Prosper's observation that District may not cover the
> distributed system that DHIS2 has become.
>
> MobiLars
> On 2013 5 2 15:12, "Knut Staring" <knutst@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
>
>> There is indeed a long history, as Jason points out, and the "district"
>> focus took its inspiration from the WHO Alma Ata Declaration from 1978 and
>> its focus on Primary Health Care and "Health For All"
>> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alma_Ata_Declaration
>>
>> Furthermore, the very first versions of DHIS came out of close
>> collaboration with three pilot districts in Cape Town:
>> http://www.mn.uio.no/ifi/english/research/networks/hisp/hisp-history.html
>> http://folk.uio.no/patrickr/refdoc/BraaHedberg02.pdf
>>
>> http://www.mn.uio.no/ifi/english/research/networks/hisp/integrated-health-information-architecture.html
>>
>> However, by this stage, it seems to me that the acronym DHIS has also
>> acquired quite an identity of its own, a bit like e.g. IBM, a name much
>> like others, which could be used without necessarily going into "what it
>> stands for".
>>
>> Knut
>>
>>
>>
>> On Thu, May 2, 2013 at 2:54 PM, Jason Pickering <
>> jason.p.pickering@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
>>
>>> Hi Proper,
>>>
>>> Remember, with open source software, you are free to call it what you
>>> want! I know of a private company who has now forked DHIS2 and are calling
>>> it something entirely different, for their own reasons. In other countries,
>>> DHIS2 has been  branded differently, according to their own acronyms.
>>>
>>> I would however, not expect a change on this, given the long history. :)
>>>
>>> My two cents,
>>> Jason
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> On Thu, May 2, 2013 at 7:41 PM, Prosper BT <ptb3000@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
>>>
>>>> Dear team,
>>>>
>>>> Quite often end users especially below and above the district level
>>>> have asked Why 'District' and we have struggled to explain this by first
>>>> telling history. In passing someone suggested renaming District to
>>>> Decentralized and Software to System.
>>>>
>>>> What it if in respect of maintaining the acronym it becomes
>>>> "Decentralized Health Information System - DHIS?
>>>>
>>>> 'Don't kill the messenger'
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> Regards
>>>>
>>>> --
>>>> Prosper Behumbiize, MPH
>>>> Phone:        +256 414 320076
>>>> Cell:            +256 752 751776
>>>>                    +256 702 762707
>>>>
>>>> _______________________________________________
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>>>>
>>>>
>>>
>>> _______________________________________________
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>>>
>>
>>
>> --
>> Knut Staring
>> Dept. of Informatics, University of Oslo
>> +4791880522
>> http://dhis2.org
>>
>> _______________________________________________
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