About Nigeria Health Facility Registry
The Nigeria Health Facility Registry (HFR) was developed in 2017 as part of effort to dynamically manage
the Master Health Facility List (MFL) in the country. The MFL "is a complete listing of health facilities in a
country (both public and private) and is comprised of a set of identification items for each facility
(signature domain) and basic information on the service capacity of each facility (service domain)".
The Federal Ministry of Health had previously identified the need for an information system to manage the MFL in light of different shortcomings encountered in maintaining an up-to-date paper based MFL. The benefits of the HFR are numerous including serving as the hub for connecting different information systems thereby enabling integration and interoperability, eliminating duplication of health facility lists and for planning the establishment of new health facilities. Elaboration on the use cases of importance for which the HFR should address was subsequently made.
The development of the HFR followed a consultative process among the different stakeholders working within the Federal Ministry of Health, its agencies and development partners.
The steps of the process followed are listed below:
The Federal Ministry of Health had previously identified the need for an information system to manage the MFL in light of different shortcomings encountered in maintaining an up-to-date paper based MFL. The benefits of the HFR are numerous including serving as the hub for connecting different information systems thereby enabling integration and interoperability, eliminating duplication of health facility lists and for planning the establishment of new health facilities. Elaboration on the use cases of importance for which the HFR should address was subsequently made.
The development of the HFR followed a consultative process among the different stakeholders working within the Federal Ministry of Health, its agencies and development partners.
The steps of the process followed are listed below:
Request and Authorization by the Honorable Minister to commence the process for modifying
the MFL for the country
Stakeholder’s workshop in August 2016 at Reiz Continental Hotel during which the classes of
health facilities to be covered in the HFR and the data elements of importance for each class of
health facility were identified.
Establishment of the MFL Technical Working Group co-chaired by the Department of Health
Planning Research and Statistics and the Department of Hospital Services. Other members were
the Department of Information and Communications Technology, National Primary Healthcare
Development Agency, National Population Commission, National Bureau of Statistics, the UN
agencies including the World Health Organization, World Bank, USAID, HISP Nigeria with
technical support from MEASURE Evaluation.
Three state study (FCT, Lagos and Cross River) to understand health facility registration process
variation and identify potential workflow issues to be built into the HFR. Also opportunity for the
retrieval of data collection tools used by the different states.
Consultations with various regulatory agencies including a meeting between the HMH and all
the regulatory agencies.
Finalization and approval of data elements for HFR
Development and testing of the HFR
Harmonization of different health facility lists and upload into the HFR
Presentation of the HFR to stakeholders (including the Honorable Minister of Health) and
obtaining feedback for its improvement
Development of draft implementation guidelines
Release of HFR to the public
The Honorable Minister of Health, Prof. Isaac F. Adewole at the presentation of the HFR to him stated that
Asking me to be a champion of the HFR is like preaching to the choir. Take it that I am already a champion
The project was supported by the United States Agency for International DevelopmentPARTNERS
