Building consensus on common features and interoperability use cases for community health information systems: a...

Area of Science:

• Global Health
• Health Informatics
• Digital Health

Background:

• Community health information systems (CHISs) are vital, widely adopted health information systems in low- and middle-income countries.
• These systems have evolved to become more sophisticated and evidence-based over the past decade.

Purpose of the Study:

• To establish expert consensus on essential features for CHISs.
• To identify interoperability priorities for community health information systems.

Main Methods:

• A Delphi study involving systematically selected global CHIS experts.
• Iterative surveys and follow-up interviews across five rounds.
• Focus group discussions with 10 community health worker (CHW) leaders to supplement findings.

Main Results:

• CHISs must be adaptable to local contexts and support diverse end-users beyond CHWs, including patients and clinicians.
• Experts identified 23 of 30 WHO-classified digital health interventions as important for CHISs (77%).
• Case management and care coordination (38%) are core features, with top interoperability priorities being CHIS to health management information system reporting and CHIS to electronic medical record referrals.

Conclusions:

• Modern CHISs require extensive features, support multiple user roles, and must be highly adaptable.
• Future interoperability aims to enhance data exchange and measurably strengthen community health systems for improved care delivery.