Nigerian case study: lessons learned in piloting the national health management information system in Bauchi, Enugu, and Oyo States

The Vision project (VISION) and the Federal Ministry of Health of Nigeria (FMOH) are collaboratively implementing a three year (2001-2004) family planning and reproductive health (FP/RH) project in three states and 15 local government areas (LGAs) in Nigeria, with funding and support from the United States Agency for International Development (USAID). During the proposal design process, the FMOH underscored a vital need for routine data to plan health programs. To meet this need, as part of the program, VISION agreed to pilot test the FMOH's National Health Information System (NHMS), which the FMOH designed in the late 1990s but never fully implemented. The purpose of the pilot is to support the institutionalization of a sustainable, federally endorsed system that provides routine health data to Nigerians to help them to plan and manage their health programs. This paper describes how Nigerians are working towards this goal, discusses major challenges they have encountered, solutions they have implemented, and provides recommendations for other countries that wish to learn from their experience.