WHO Integrated Data Platform (WIDP)

The WHO Integrated Data Platform (WIDP), established in 2016, is a DHIS2-based platform for the collection, analysis and dissemination of data that helps the Organization:

• monitor disease burden and health system capacity globally;
• strengthen countries surveillance systems;
• foster collaboration and promote shared standards across WHO health programmes;
• improve interoperability across information systems to enhance data availability and readiness for decision making.

Monitoring disease burden and health system capacity globally

WIDP is used to collect data from Member States on health workforce malaria, hepatitis and various neglected tropical diseases. This data allows for the development of the annual World malaria report, the annual report on neglected tropical diseases and the National Health Workforce Accounts (NHWA). In addition, data collected through WIDP feeds into the WHO Global Health Observatory, the NHWA data portal, and the WHO Malaria Threats Map. WIDP also contributes to the monitoring of the Sustainable Development Goals and the WHO Triple Billion Agenda, and supports several of the Organization’s global public health goods.

WIDP offers:

• standard global data collection forms to report disease data;
• data reporting tools for countries to push data automatically and regularly from their health information systems or to import data from spreadsheets or external software tools;
• dashboards to visualize disease trends, per country, region and at global level;
• data quality control tools to verify data before considering it for global trend analysis;
• data export tools to bring data into statistical software analysis tools.

Strengthening countries surveillance systems

Developing standard surveillance metadata packages for countries

WIDP improves WHO’s ability to develop and share metadata standards with Member States, helping them to strengthen their national health surveillance systems. WIDP was built using DHIS2, the health information system of choice for many countries, to convert surveillance standards into practical resources and tools that can be easily implemented at the national level. This is aligned with the Health Data Collaborative initiative to strengthen data use capacity in countries through the development of metadata standards.

WIDP supports:

• the development of DHIS2 metadata packages based on WHO disease surveillance standards that can be directly installed in national health surveillance systems;
• sharing standard metadata packages with countries by providing live demos and package exploration tools;
• importing standard metadata packages by providing metadata mapping and import wizards;
• the creation of capacity building tools to facilitate training surveillance officers on the use of DHIS2.

The WHO standard metadata packages supported by WIDP include:

• Entomology and vector control standard metadata packages
• Hepatitis
• Neglected tropical diseases (under development)

 Providing a platform for countries to collect and use data

When countries do not have the capacity to collect and analyse health information at the national level, they can request to use WIDP temporarily to collect good-quality data to inform decision-making. During this period, data remains owned by the country, and WHO will support national programmes to build the necessary human and technical capacity to collect the data in their national health information system. This temporary use is mainly requested for the collection of case-based or patient-based data. 

WIDP supports:

• secure storage and aggregation of case-based data from patient visits to health facilities;
• the collection of integrated patient data to provide end to end information on the evolution of patients’ health condition tracked over different health care services (such as collection of data from prehospital setting, through emergency unit visits to inpatient stays);
• offline data collection through the WIDP Android app tool, to support health facilities and active case search in remote settings;
• automatic and real time data analysis to improve case management (such as calculation of clinical scores to support diagnosis);
• annual reporting of national case-base data in an aggregated manner for global monitoring purposes.

Fostering collaboration and promoting shared standards across WHO programmes

WIDP is maintained by several WHO departments and the department for Information Management & Technology in collaboration the Division for Data Analytics and Delivery for Impact. Strategic decisions are taken collaboratively during bi-monthly coordination meetings.

WIDP helps departments:

• share costs derived from global data reporting systems and the development standard DHIS2 metadata packages;
• harmonize data collection standards and processes;
• learn from each other’s experience and build best practices together.

WHO departments using WIDP

• Global Malaria Programme (GMP)
• Control of Neglected tropical diseases (NTD)
• Clinical Services and Systems (IHS)
• Health Work Force
• Global Hepatitis Programme

Improving interoperability to enhance data availability and readiness for decision-making

Beyond facilitating data sharing from Member States to WHO, WIDP also focuses on improving data sharing across different information systems:

• to help WHO use the best possible data to accurately monitor the burden of disease;
• to provide Member States with a richer source of information to improve decisions making at the national level.

DHIS2 presents a strong application programming interface (API), which enables data import and export. The WIDP team has built tools to ease data exchange between different information systems, such as:

• WIDP and other DHIS2 platforms: a generic DHIS2 app - Metadata sync App - to facilitate sharing data and metadata across different DHIS2 instances. It is used by WIDP to help WHO and Member States share data.

• WIDP and Xmart: Xmart is a WHO corporate tool maintained for data warehousing. Pipelines have been built to push country validated data reported to WHO through WIDP into Xmart, enabling streamlining of data across several WHO projects. This also allows countries to share data collected through their national DHIS2 platform directly to Xmart.

• DHIS2 and Go.Data: During the COVID9 pandemic, many countries were interested in using Data, an outbreak investigation tool for field data collection during public health emergencies. The tool includes functionalities for case investigation, contact follow-up and the visualization of transmission chains. Some countries using DHIS2 as their national health information system were interested in using Go.Data for its contact-tracing and visualization capacities. WHO, in collaboration with the University Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya and the University of Oslo, has worked in developing interoperability between these 2 tools.

For more information, please contact: [email protected]