Three Strategies for Functional Architecting: Cases from the Health Systems of Developing Countries

Abstract

Health systems in developing countries are commonly struggling with multiple and overlapping information systems (IS). There is a need to move away from this to reduce the burden of parallel reporting it creates and enable coordinated information collection and sharing. However, this is not straightforward as it prompts intricate functional architecting activities across a range of IS domains including health staff, commodities, logistics, progress tracking, financing and health services information. This paper is based on a case study of a District Health Information Software and how it is involved in the current drive toward integrated systems. From focusing on aggregate health indicators for health management, it is becoming one component among others in larger architectures where it may take on many different roles. The aim of this paper is to strengthen our understanding of the opportunities and challenges related to functionally architecting integrated systems. Applying an information Infrastructure lens, we describe these processes as involving a range of different software components and actors not under any central control. We conceptualize functional architecting as activities performed by multiple actors to configure and re-configure the functional roles of independent software components. Based on the case study, we contribute by identifying three different architecting strategies and conceptualize them as connecting, encroaching, and charting.