Every country faces the challenging task of keeping its people healthy. From delivering primary care in rural communities and urban centers to addressing health crises like pandemics, each country needs accurate and reliable data to plan and deliver quality health services.
Ministries of Health can benefit from leveraging geospatial data to better plan, monitor and implement timely health interventions; inform decision-making; and collaborate across sectors and regions to better serve communities. However, many countries currently miss out on these benefits because they lack a single source of standardized and regularly updated health facility data.
Geolocated Health Facilities Data (GHFD) initiative seeks to turn this global gap into a global good. The initiative provides support for developing:
- a singular, accurate Health Facility Master List (HFML) per country that is maintained, actively used, and publicly shared by the Ministry of Health;
- Ministry of Health capacity to leverage geospatial information systems (GIS) for health;
- a global database of health facility information drawn from country HFMLs.
Once developed, this framework will assist countries, regions, and the world in accelerating progress toward WHO's Triple Billion targets and the Sustainable Development Goals.
From a global gap to a global good
The COVID-19 pandemic underscored that many countries, even higher-income ones, do not know where all their health facilities are. Now is the time to invest in a solution – before the next health crisis.
The GHFD initiative is a collaborative effort that starts at the country level. Lasting impact depends on countries having the capacity they need to readily identify where their health facilities are located.
The GHFD initiative provides assistance to countries looking to update and share a single HFML for their country that everyone can refer to and use. Our mission is to strengthen the technical capacity of Ministries of Health across levels to ensure the availability, quality, accessibility and use of HFMLs, while avoiding duplication and increasing data interoperability.
The final product of the initiative will be a global good for use by all: the world’s first central and accessible public database of health facility:
● Locations
● Names
● Types (as defined by each country)
Countries will assign unique identifiers in their HFMLs to promote interoperability at the country level. WHO will draw this information from each country’s regularly updated HFML and assign each facility in the global database a unique identifier. This will enable interoperability with other systems and tools.
By 2027, we aim to have all 194 WHO Member States regularly updating their HFMLs and contributing information from them to the global database.
The GHFD initiative is a key activity of WHO’s GIS Centre for Health.
Get involved
A sustainable global database of health facility information drawn from regularly updated country HFMLs will provide leaders, researchers, data analysts, donors and more with a tool to solve problems, make stronger decisions, and innovate.
More than 50 partners are involved in the GHFD initiative so far, including implementing partners, technical advisers and donors alongside WHO global, regional and country offices.
Join us and be a part of the movement to geolocate health facilities, build capacity for GIS, and unlock the potential of health facility data for health impact.
Governments
The initiative provides support to Ministries of Health who need assistance updating, geolocating, digitizing, maintaining and/or openly sharing a singular HFML for their country.
Interested Ministries of Health can contact [email protected] for more information and connect with their local WHO office using contact information posted on the respective country office page.
Donors
The initiative helps countries connect with donors and financial mechanisms to assist in HFML development and GIS capacity building. The initiative is also seeking support for the global database, which will be a global public good.
Interested donors and other partners can contact [email protected] for more information.
Data Users
The initiative assists countries in using and meeting best practices for data quality, governance, management and interoperability. The global database will include a data dictionary, metadata and unique identifiers.
Interested academics and data organizations can contact [email protected] with ideas. Note: The global database is not available yet.
Delivering value at multiple levels
Strengthening health systems and delivery
Geospatial data enables better planning, monitoring and implementation of timely health interventions to better serve communities. Existing health facility data is fragmented, which makes evidence-based health planning difficult and underscores the need for better coordination.
Increasing data interoperability and coordination
Regularly maintaining and updating 4 HFML data elements (facility name, location, type and unique identifier) reduces duplication and fosters collaboration and coordination within and beyond the health sector. Unique identifiers enable interoperability.
Leveraging data rather than simply collecting it
Data is only as powerful as it is usable. Metadata and data dictionaries ensure consistent understanding, usage and applicability of HFML data collected and updated by Ministries of Health. Geographic coordinates enable users to visualize health services, identify gaps, and spur innovation and new service development.
Empowering donors to invest and coordinate
A single accessible and verified HFML provides donors with an accurate picture of health facilities in a country. This saves time and resources by reducing duplication and providing quality data for planning and monitoring purposes.
Advancing progress toward global goals
Routinely updated HFMLs strengthen decision-making to increase health impact and drive creation of more efficient, effective and targeted programmes that advance global goals, including universal health coverage.