Architectural Framework for Information Integration: Case of Organizations Working on Water, Hygiene and Sanitation in Ethiopia
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Date
2013-05
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Addis Ababa University
Abstract
Water, Hygiene and Sanitation (WASH) is a subject of intersectoral interest that engages different governmental and non-governmental organizations. As it happens in the otherareas of public health, existence of parallel WASH activities makes the sector prone to theproblems of fragmentation, lack of consistency and other problems that plagued the sector.
Such problems were felt at the national level by the Ethiopian government and, as the result,movement towards integrating all WASH activities in the nation was started by drafting aWASH implementation Framework (WIF) and Memorandum of Understanding whicheventually was signed by four governmental organizations. The WIF aims at integrating all aspects of WASH activities, including the information system, under one umbrella and the interest of this research lies on exploring the possibility for creating a framework for anintegrated WASH information system that can be shared by all stakeholders. The mainobjective of this research was to study the current status of WASH data creation,management and sharing practices among organizations working in the sector and proposean architectural framework that can be considered as a guide to setup an Integrated WASH
information system. To this end, this research focused on the use of indicators as primary tools for data integration and attempted to study types of WASH activities performed and indicators used by target organizations, types of data they collect under each indicator,formats for data collection including the data attributes being used, standards being used for formulation of indicators and practice of sharing between organization working in the sector. Relevant data was collected mainly through semi-structured interviews and analysis
of relevant documentations provided by the respondents. The result was eventually used to propose an architectural framework that can be considered as a starting point for practitioners working in the area. The framework was discussed with selected respondents for checking its validity and the overall reaction of the respondents was found to be positive.
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Keywords
Health Information Architecture, Health Information Architectural Framework, Water, Hygiene and Sanitation information System, Water, hygiene and Sanitation information Integration, Public Health Information System, Indicator- data Linkage. Indicator definition, Indicator standardization, standardized data definition