Guide · Uganda

HMIS 105: the outpatient monthly report, and how to stop dreading it

Q: What is HMIS 105?

HMIS 105 is Uganda's Health Unit Outpatient Monthly Report. A facility compiles it from its own registers at the end of each month and submits it to the Ministry of Health through DHIS2. It covers outpatient attendance and diagnoses, maternal and child health, HIV services, laboratory work, the stock position of essential medicines, and a financial summary.

Q: Where do the numbers on HMIS 105 come from?

From the registers the facility already keeps day to day — the OPD register, the antenatal and immunisation registers, the laboratory register, the HIV testing register and the stock cards. HMIS 105 does not collect anything new. It is a tally of what was already written down, which is why the quality of the report is decided during the month, not at the end of it.

Every health facility in Uganda compiles HMIS 105 at the end of the month and submits it to the Ministry of Health through DHIS2. In most small facilities it costs someone one to two days with a calculator, a pile of registers and a ruler. It does not have to.

What HMIS 105 actually is

HMIS 105 is the Health Unit Outpatient Monthly Report — one form, around twelve sections, summarising a month of outpatient work. It is not a new collection of data. Every figure on it already exists somewhere in the facility's registers; the form just asks you to add them up.

Between them, the sections cover:

Outpatient attendance, referrals and diagnoses — broken down by age and sex, which is where most of the counting time goes.
Maternal and child health — antenatal care, family planning, immunisation.
HIV testing services.
Laboratory — tests done, by type.
Stock status of essential medicines and supplies.
A financial summary.

Where each number is supposed to come from

This is the part that decides whether the report takes an hour or two days, and it is settled long before month end:

Attendance and diagnoses → the OPD register
ANC, family planning, immunisation → the MCH registers
Tests → the laboratory register
HIV testing → the HIV testing register
Medicines → the stock cards and dispensing log

If a register was filled in properly on the day, HMIS 105 is arithmetic. If it was filled in from memory at 6pm, HMIS 105 is archaeology.

Why it goes wrong

Four failures account for most of the pain, and none of them are laziness:

Age and sex disaggregation. A diagnosis column is easy to count. The same diagnosis split into age bands and by sex means re-reading every line. Hand-tallying this is where errors enter.
The same patient counted twice. A patient who came, was sent to the laboratory, and came back to the clinician can appear as two attendances unless the register makes the return visit obvious.
Diagnoses written freehand. "Malaria", "malaria?", "clinical malaria" and "RDT+ve malaria" are one line on the form and four in the register.
Stock figures reconstructed at month end. The medicines section needs the position on the day, not a guess a fortnight later.

What actually makes it faster

In order of how much time each one gives back:

Record the diagnosis from a fixed list, not free text. This single change removes most of the tallying ambiguity. It costs nothing and works on paper — a printed list beside the register is enough.
Capture age and sex at registration, once, so no one has to infer them from a name at month end.
Update the stock card at the moment of dispensing, not in a catch-up session. The medicines section then reads off the card.
Tally weekly, not monthly. Four small counts beat one large one, and errors are found while the day is still rememberable.

Where software helps, and where it does not

Be clear about the limit first: CareBoon does not connect to DHIS2 and does not submit HMIS 105 for you. Someone at your facility still enters and submits the report. Any vendor telling you otherwise is worth a second question.

What a system removes is the counting. In CareBoon a patient is registered once with age and sex, the clinician picks a diagnosis from your own catalogue rather than typing prose, laboratory tests are recorded as they are resulted, and stock moves when a prescription is dispensed rather than when someone remembers. At month end those totals already exist. You read them off instead of counting them.

The same discipline that makes HMIS 105 quick also makes the rest of the month quicker, which is the honest argument for it — nobody buys software to file a form faster, but everybody notices getting two days back.

Questions we get asked

What is HMIS 105?

Uganda's Health Unit Outpatient Monthly Report. A facility compiles it from its own registers at the end of each month and submits it to the Ministry of Health through DHIS2. It covers outpatient attendance and diagnoses, maternal and child health, HIV services, laboratory work, the stock position of essential medicines, and a financial summary.

Where do the numbers on HMIS 105 come from?

From the registers you already keep — OPD, antenatal and immunisation, laboratory, HIV testing, and the stock cards. HMIS 105 collects nothing new. It is a tally of what was already written down, which is why the quality of the report is decided during the month, not at the end of it.

Does CareBoon submit HMIS 105 to DHIS2 for us?

No. CareBoon does not connect to DHIS2 and does not submit anything on a facility's behalf. What it does is remove the tallying: because every attendance, diagnosis, test and dispense is already recorded as it happens, the totals can be read off instead of counted by hand. Someone at the facility still enters and submits the report.

Start free See what it costs