A Standard Approach to Enabling the Semantic Interoperability of Disease Surveillance Data in Health Information Systems: A Case of Namibia

The Ministry of Health and Social Services (MoHSS) in Namibia operates silo information systems in all of its 14 regions countrywide and these systems were a donation from non-governmental organisations. In addition to a regional District Health Information System (DHIS-2) for each region there is the main DHIS-2 at the MoHSS. The Health Information Systems (HIS) that include the DHIS-2 and the silo systems at the present work in isolation, hence the aim of this study is to find a framework that can enable the semantic interoperability of data in such heterogeneous health information systems (HIS). This aim is to allow the DHIS-2 and such silo systems that are in the Namibian public hospitals to work as an integrated platform that can be used to share and exchange important disease-surveillance information. Utilising the Integrating the Healthcare Enterprise (IHE) standard, this research guides on how to integrate such heterogeneous health information systems through the adoption of established health standards. Thus, IHE and Health Level Seven (HL7) are adopted to interface DHIS and silo systems specifically at the level of data. An Enterprise Master Index that utilizes the Patient Identification Segment is implemented. The specific aim of this research therefore was to design and develop a framework that is meant for data semantic interoperability of the DHIS and other health information silo systems to enable them to exchange disease-surveillance information. The results of this research are a framework which enables the semantic interoperability of disease surveillance data within Namibian hospitals through the adoption of IHE and HL7 standards in the form of a prototype that demonstrates how disease surveillance data can be integrated in the Namibia environment.