Case Study

Abstract

In 2009, the Tanzanian Ministry of Health, Community Development, Gender, Elderly and Children (MoHCDGEC) counted over 10 different health facility lists managed by donors, government ministries, agencies and implementing partners. These function-specific lists were not integrated or linked. The ministry's Health Sector Strategic Plan included the development of an authoritative source for all health facility information, called the Master Facility List (MFL). During development, the ministry adopted the term Health Facility Registry (HFR), an online tool providing public access to a database about all officially recognized health facilities (public and private). The MFL, which includes the health facility list at any specific point in time can be exported from the HFR. This chapter presents the Tanzanian case study describing the work and lessons learned in building the HFR—focusing on software development, introducing geographic positioning systems and harmonizing MFL data. MoHCDGEC launched the HFR public portal in September 2015.