Different strategies to define the role of software components

What is it about?

Health management is typically based on information concerning health staff, commodities, logistics, progress tracking, financing and health services provision. This information is commonly distributed across different information systems, and there is a current drive towards integrating these sources. Linking these information systems together entails integration as well as defining and re-distributing functional roles between different software components. In this paper, we identify three different strategies involved in these processes and conceptualize them as three different architecting strategies and conceptualize them as connecting, encroaching, and charting.

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Why is it important?

The fragmentation of information systems and parallel reporting in the public health system in developing countries are recognized as major challenges to efficient health service delivery and management. While integrating systems into more coherent information system architectures is a viable approach to reduce fragmentation, it is also a political process where proponents of different software components will work towards strategically position themselves. Understanding these processes and how they play out is important to understand the role of architecture and how different actors are strategizing.

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