Institutional Shaping of Effective Use of Routine Health Data Management in the Context of Global Humanitarian Organizations

Abstract

This thesis investigates the design, implementation, and adoption of a Humanitarian Health Management Information System (H-HMIS) in a global medical humanitarian organization. The central question aims at understanding what constitutes effective use of a health information system in a humanitarian context. The study of the theory of effective use is based on a two-level analysis: a macro-level institutional examination of the deployment environment and a micro-level affordance-based analysis of system uses and user-technology interactions in the field. The interpretive research approach followed a Canonical Action Research framework to first identify what constitutes effective use in the field and the main challenges encountered, and second, identify the drivers for improving effective use in the defined setting. Findings suggests a (re)definition of Transparent Interaction and identifies learning and adaptation actions as potential challenges for effective use in humanitarian settings. Contributions to the field include contextualizing effective use in the humanitarian context and proposing an affordance-based process for measuring effective use. Practical outcomes involve guidelines for H-HMIS use strengthening and digitizing manual data collection in the field. Overall, the study offers insights into designing information systems for easy adoption and effective use in humanitarian organizations, with broader applicability to similar resource-constrained settings.