At EyeSeeTea, we’ve been proud to collaborate closely with Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) over the past several years, providing robust, tailored DHIS2 solutions to support their critical humanitarian missions. Working primarily with MSF’s Operational Center Barcelona Athens (MSF-OCBA) and MSF’s Operational Center Geneva (MSF-OCG), we’ve tackled technical challenges across various domains.
MSF and other humanitarian organisations operate in some of the world’s most challenging environments, delivering critical health services amid conflict, epidemics and disasters. In order to do this effectively, they need accurate and timely data to inform decision-making, resource allocation, and improvements in patient outcomes. This is where specialised software becomes essential.
In high-stakes contexts where lives are on the line, reliable applications are a must. Software solutions help streamline operations by:
- Capturing and managing health data efficiently, even in remote, offline locations.
- Enabling real-time monitoring and reporting on outbreaks, vaccination campaigns, and health services.
- Improving coordination across teams and sites, ensuring that frontline workers, field coordinators, and headquarters have access to accurate and timeline information.
- Supporting evidence-based decision-making, from local operations to global policy development.
"Working with MSF is an incredibly rewarding experience. Their teams have a deep knowledge of DHIS2, so while building the applications together, we have learnt much from each other. This partnership has enabled us to develop applications that are the perfect tools for the job. Building apps that require intensive DHIS2 use at limited connection settings has been challenging, but we've made it"
DHIS2 software solutions for humanitarian operations
DHIS2 (District Health Information Software 2) is an open-source, flexible platform widely adopted by global health organizations, such as WHO and MSF. There are several reasons for that choice:
- Adaptability: DHIS2 can be customized to fit a wide range of health programs and logistic needs.
- Offline capability: Many humanitarian missions operate without a stable internet connection. Our DHIS2 apps’ ability to work offline and sync later is crucial in these settings.
- Data visualization and analytics: With customized built-in dashboards, charts, and maps, our DHIS2 apps make it easier to interpret complex data and act quickly.
- Security: Data privacy is essential in humanitarian projects. DHIS2 user roles and groups ensure that only the right users access the right information.
- Global support community: As a widely open source used system, DHIS2 benefits from a large community of users and developers, making training and troubleshooting more accessible.
Ultimately, software like our DHIS2 based applications empowers humanitarian organizations to turn data into action—supporting better care, faster responses, and more accountable programs, even in the world’s most difficult circumstances.
App development for MSF
Our relationship with MSF spans more than a decade. We’ve developed numerous tools, apps, and scripts to ensure their DHIS2 instances remain solid and up to date.
Some highlights of our work with MSF OCBA are:
- Vaccination App: EyeSeeTea’s Vaccination App represents a hallmark in DHIS2 Custom Web Application development, designed to streamline information management for both reactive and preventive vaccination campaigns. It has been used in Ethiopia, Central African Republic, Niger, Democratic Republic Congo, Burkina Faso, Somalia, South Sudan, Sudan, Nigeria, Palestina and Mali. This application exemplifies ease of use and rapid configurability, fully harmonized with various DHIS2 versions over its 7+ years in production use, including migrations from 2.30 up to version 2.40.
- Android App Fork: We delivered a customized fork of the official UiO Android App to better fit MSF’s mobile data capture needs.
- Tally Sheets: we developed an app for an easy, quick and automatic generation of tally sheets given a dataset in DHIS2. Thanks to it, MSF teams working in the fields can generate Tally Sheets to print on paper and take with them to their interventions.
- Dashboard Reports: a new DHIS2 app to build completely customized Word reports based on DHIS2 dashboards.
- Customized solutions based on our EyeSeeTea’s DHIS2 Suite apps:
- User Extended App, one of EyeSeeTea’s DHIS2 Suite app, was extended to include user roles, user groups and dashboards
- MSF Aggregate Data Sync: Developed and piloted in Malakal (South Sudan), this tailored tool syncs Program Indicators into Data Elements, helping bridge gaps in aggregate reporting in field environments with limited connectivity. It was based on our MetadataSync App, another EyeSeeTea’s DHIS2 Suite app.
- Bulk Load: our app to import and export DHIS2 data using easy to use Excel sheets and templates. It was used during MSF’s work at Gaza
Building efficient and scalable DHIS2 platforms for MSF’s Operational Center at Geneva
For the last two years, we’ve been providing support and maintenance for DHIS2 to the technical team at MSF’s headquarters in Geneva. We helped them transition from Windows to Linux systems to improve efficiency and security. We have also supported them in updating their DHIS2 applications to the latest version.
To facilitate this transition, we have developed custom tools for remote script execution, deployment and system monitoring, enabling them to establish a highly efficient and stable DHIS2 infrastructure. We have also helped them to improve the synchronisation of their local DHIS2 instances and optimise their data flows.
"For an NGO using DHIS2 on a daily basis like MSF OCG, the combination of technical expertise, proximity and reactivity offered by EyeSeeTea is what makes the difference to ensure the well-functioning of a Health Information System, despite the changes we are facing constantly in the field of operations."
What’s next
We are excited to continue working with different MSF teams and helping them overcome new challenges. We have recently started working with the MSF team in Brussels, improving the synchronisation of their DHIS2 data and metadata across servers. We are optimising their DHIS2 platform by aligning metadata between servers, designing shared metadata standards, and unifying configurations. Our custom scripts help them to streamline system interoperability and ensure consistent, reliable information flows.
We are working with MSF OCBA to improve the vaccination app, boost its performance and extend its functionalities, including nutrition tracking, to maximise the impact of their health interventions. We continue to support MSF’s Operational Centre in Geneva by thinking of new ways to make their DHIS2 instances even more efficient.
Thanks to our support, MSF teams have been able to make use of DHIS2’s potential and tailor it to their demanding and ever-changing operating environments. It is a privilege to work with them, helping them shape the tools that make their lifesaving missions more agile, more efficient, and even more impactful.
