"e-Praja Suwa Arunalu": A Pilot Study of a Health Information Management System for Public Health Midwives in Sri Lanka

We conducted a needs analysis amongst 16 Public Health Midwives (PHMs) in Sri Lanka and found that they spend most of their time on managing health records. We developed an electronic Health Information Management System (HIMS) to help them with their work. The HIMS was designed so that it could accept data from the PHMs, and generate reports which could be used by the PHMs themselves as well as by their supervisors. The HIMS was tested by a group of 16 PHMs in a remote area in the Rathnapura district. Mini-laptops with the software were distributed to the PHMs and they were given the necessary training. They started entering historical data from the registers into the system by themselves. Nearly 10,000 public health records were generated in the first three months. In a subsequent survey, all the PHMs gave positive answers indicating that they were happy with the pilot project and that they would like to continue using it to enhance their service. The system seems to be a practical solution for the field activities of PHMs in Sri Lanka. The knowledge gained from this study would be useful for future e-Health implementations in the public health sector of Sri Lanka.