MCHS - AN APPLICATION SOFTWARE FOR FAMILY WELFARE PROGRAMS

At the level of first contact, a primary health care centre, informati on management is an unwieldy task, therefore health information system s are reported to be inadequate and weak. Microcomputers could improve information management at this level, but there is little success due to a lack of specialized application software. In this paper we descr ibe software developed after a multi-centre systems analysis study, on an essential data set, to support the delivery of the public health p rogrammes for family welfare, i.e. maternal health care, family planni ng and immunization programmes. The modular approach was taken to deve lop a common application software for information management use at mu ltiple sites. The software is tested in a laboratory mode by retrospec tive data entry from sites in Sweden and in India. All the information could be entered and site-specific reports that were generated are co mpared. The software provided a common data collection format, an esse ntial platform for outcomes research.