Before the launch of standard National Health Information System (NMHIS) in 2000, there had been acute paucity of reliable and timely health information in Pakistan. Health Departments had no choice than to resort to estimates or carry expensive community based surveys to determine the disease incidence. After the development and deployment of NHMIS, overall Health System is reshaping itself based upon the regular and frequent information now available on a good number number of priority health problems. This is system is now offering tremendous opportunities for promoting the cause of evidence based decision making and monitoring of its expanded health care structure. This effort had led to putting in place a standard system of data collection and transmission from roughly 13000 public health services (both urban and rural ). The new system is now able to promptly locate pockets of vulnerable communities reporting high disease incidence.
Objective
Purpose of this abstract is to show how launch of a standard National Health Information System is has become the main national data source, and is, playing a pivotal role in facilitating decision making in health care system in Pakistan.