Reliable health services depend on one fundamental truth: knowing exactly where care is delivered. In complex environments, maintaining an accurate Health Facility Registry is not a one-time data collection task but a journey of continuous improvement. By supporting the establishment off robust routines and decentralized validation loops, Bluesquare helps national health authorities to turn fragmented datasets into a resilient foundation for the health system.
The core strength of a National Health Information System (HIS) lies in the precision of its geodata. Recently, the DSNIS (Direction du Système National d’Information Sanitaire) in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) led a major national effort to enhance its structural data framework. A total of 2,486 new geolocations were integrated into the national data infrastructure using GRID3 and Acasus data.
This achievement highlights the growing in-country ownership of data curation workflows. The push was particularly impactful across four key provinces—Sud-Ubangi, Haut-Katanga, Tshopo, and Maniema—which each saw more than 200 new locations added to their registries.
Example of a data push on the DRC sanitary map
The DSNIS team managed the process independently, through a one-off standardized GeoPackage (.gpkg) upload system. The available datasets were processed through IASO (an open-source platform recognized as a Digital Public Good) and prepared for synchronization into the national DHIS2-powered SNIS (Système National d’Information Sanitaire).
Maintaining spatial data integrity requires strict validation criteria before any registry push occurs. During a recent iteration focusing on 311 new geolocations from the latest Acasus dataset, Ministry of Health staff ran targeted cleaning scripts. The available data was compared directly against existing SNIS registries on the basis of unique DHIS2 IDs, allowing the team to bypass the inconsistencies of name-based fuzzy matching.
To guarantee geographic accuracy, the data management routine enforced a strict spatial boundary rule: any proposed facility data point located more than 10km away from its designated health zone perimeter was flagged and excluded from the push to preserve logical health geographies.
The value of a digital health ecosystem does not come from standalone technical interventions, but from the institutionalization of data submission & validation loops. By embedding platform capabilities into administrative routines, Ministries of Health staff successfully bridge the gap between data science and field reality.
Using the IASO web interface and mobile application, the registry update process follows a secure, multi-level administrative workflow:
This decentralized approach ensures that data maintenance is treated as a routine administrative function rather than an isolated technical project.
As the DRC steadily approaches complete geolocation coverage of its health system network, the nature of registry management is shifting. The priority is transitioning away from searching for missing coordinates and moving toward the qualitative optimization of what is already recorded.
Following upcoming updates to official health zone contours, the DSNIS is planning an additional, dedicated FOSA (Formation Sanitaire) update. This specific phase will focus entirely on refining and improving existing facility coordinates and attributes rather than adding new points. This systematic approach to the continuous improvement of health data ensures that national health frameworks remain accurate, resilient, and capable of supporting public health strategies over the long term.
