{'fraction_non_alphanumeric': 0.016937191249117856, 'fraction_numerical': 0.0, 'mean_word_length': 5.85024154589372, 'pattern_counts': {'":': 0, '<': 0, '<?xml version=': 0, '>': 0, 'https://': 0, 'lorem ipsum': 0, 'www.': 0, 'xml': 0}, 'pii_count': 0, 'substrings_counts': 0, 'word_list_counts': {'cursed_substrings.json': 0, 'profanity_word_list.json': 0, 'sexual_word_list.json': 0, 'zh_pornsignals.json': 0}}
Challenges and Opportunities of Integrating Primary Health Care Information System: Northern State, Sudan

This paper discusses outcome of studying challenges and opportunities of integrating Health Information System. The study was conducted in the settings of Primary Health Care programs in Northern State, Sudan. Qualitative case study was employed and data were collected through interviews, analysis of relevant documents, and observation of the settings. The results were analyzed using interpretive approach. The study findings indicated that fragmentation of Primary Health Care programs’ Information System is a major problem affecting system performance. Our study also showed that efforts to integrate Primary Health Care programs’ Information System might be challenged by the existing structural, socio-cultural and political contexts of the organization. On the other hand, opportunities for integration of the programs’ Information System lie in the existence of Health Information Center, which receives collected health data from all parts of the state and formulate common reports. Besides, most of the study participants were expressing optimism at outcomes of Information System integration. The need of considering structural, socio-cultural and political contexts of the organization is emphasised in order to address the identified challenges related to integrating Health Information Systems.