INTRODUCTION

In many organizations, the need for MIS is felt, not because there is a dearth of data, but because there is too much of it and retrieval capacity is weak. It is often said that problem is too much data and too little information. When a manager does not clearly know what is needed, the tendency is to collect whatever is available and feasible, hoping to make use of it at an appropriate occasion. It is pertinent to ask the following questions to determine the information needs of decision makers in the organization:
 
- What decisions need to be made and what decisions are actually being made?

- How and when are these decisions made?- What information is required to make these decisions?

- In what way can information be provided to the relevant levels at right time? 

Therefore, the health information has been developed to support health management for effective and quality health care by supplying timely relevant reliable information. The erstwhile Unified Management Information System (UMIS) under the previous Health and Population Sector Programme (HPSP) had been created with a view to fulfill the long felt demand of health management. This system requires further development. 

COUNTRY SITUATION 

Support is required for scaling up of activities of Health Systems in order to improve the health of the poor women and children within the framework of Millennium Development Goals and Poverty Reduction Strategies of the country. 

Better evidence is needed on the relationship between the performance and Organization of Health systems in particular the effect on the health of poor population group and on ways to manage the complex process of change.  

In an attempt to enhance health systems’ performance the challenge is to ensure that policy-makers have access to the best evidence and tools, and the capability to use them to enhance the performance of their health systems. 

CURRENT WHO SUPPORT           
 
WHO country office is actively and closely supporting government to improve the performance of health system by the generation and dissemination of evidence, to build capacity to use this evidence. 
 
Implementation of ICD-10 in Bangladesh 

WHO is supporting the adoption of International Classification of Diseases (ICD-10) in Bangladesh. ICD-10 involves conformity with an international classification of diseases and a coding of national mortality data. WHO fielded tow staff from the regional office and an expatriate expert to advocate the early adoption of ICD-10. The team conducted two workshops on ICD-10 for MOs and Statisticians of selected Upazilas. 

National Health Library 

The National Health Library and Documentation Centre is the National focal point of the Health Literature, Library and Information Services (HELLIS) national network. With WHO support, Current Awareness Services issues, Bangladesh Index Biomedicus were published, E-mail connection established. Modernization and strengthening of Library & Audiovisual unit of NHL&DC hinders proper utilization and sharing its resources with the entire network. Support is provided for modernizing and functionally strengthening of the NHL&DC library, which will help to retrieve information by health scientists, researchers, planners and policy makers and make it user friendly. 

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