The purpose of DHIS can be summarized as follows:
Provide a comprehensive HMIS solution based on data warehousing principles and a modular structure which can easily be customized to the needs of different health systems - nations, states, districts, and facilities.
Provide data entry facilities which can either be in the form of standard (scroll down) lists (of data elements), or can be customized to replicate paper forms – to make easy the process of data entry.
Provide different kinds of tools for data validation and improvement of data quality.
Provide different tools for reporting – both for automated routine reports and analysis reports, and in addition provide the user with functionality and flexibility to make their user defined reports
A dashboard for monitoring and evaluation of health programs that can allow for the generation and analysis of different indicators, and also carry out data quality analysis.
Systems management functions to carry out various operations to manage hierarchy of organization units, addition/deletion/modification of data elements etc.
Functionality to design and modify indicators.
Functionalities of export-import, so that data entered on an offline version can be exported to the district or higher level systems. Export import can also be made in relation to other applications such as Excel and Epi Info.
Integration with other software systems – such as RIMS.
Integration with Geographic Information Systems (GIS).
User management module for passwords, security, and defining authorization.
Further modules can be developed (such as for human resources management) and integrated as per user needs.
In summary, DHIS 2 provides a comprehensive HMIS solution for the reporting and analysis needs of health facilities at any level. It is a tried and tested application in various countries, and also now being adopted by WHO for their HMN implementation