Guidelines for Managing and Maintaining Nigeria’s Health Facility Registry

The MFL is a complete listing of all health facilities providing health services in the country, identified by location and a unique facility identifier. The HFR has been populated with the MFL and contains the list of hospitals and clinics validated at the state level. The process of registering a new facility in the HFR starts when the State Honorable Commissioner for Health (HCH) receives a request from a person or organization to open a new facility in the state. The HCH directs the request to the Department/Unit/Agency responsible for registration and accreditation of a facility in the state. The Department/Unit/Agency, referred to as the State Facility Registration Office (SFRO), provides registration forms to the applicant and all other documents detailing the requirements for opening the type of facility requested. The application forms completed by the applicant are sent to the SFRO, where a team of health professionals, including representatives of regulatory bodies and professional associations, undertakes an inspection. The team completes the registration form and takes the Global Positioning System (GPS) coordinates of the facility. The inspection report is submitted to the SFRO for consideration and further action. If the facility registration request is successful, the SFRO includes the state's unique facility identifier on the registration form and transmits the information to the officer in-charge responsible for HFR entry. Once a new facility is entered in the HFR, the HFR produces a unique facility identifier automatically following the standards agreed to by the MFL Technical Working Group (TWG). The facility information is then verified and approved by another person responsible for registration, if satisfied that all the information entered is correct. The HFR transmits the information to all other offices in the state that need to have details on health facility activities, informing them about the new facility that has been added to the HFR. The State Department of Planning, Research and Statistics (SDPRS) and Local Government Area (LGA) offices that have been notified about the registration of the new facility in the HFR log in to the HFR, verify the facility's information, and update their respective physical documents, including paper registers. They also include the unique facility identifier generated by the HFR system as part of the new information in their physical documentation kept at the state and LGA levels. If the LGA verifies the facility information, the SDPRS approves the facility to be exported to the District Health Information System 2 (DHIS 2). The HFR system allows for data entry by three different units at the state level: the Department or unit responsible for registration of a facility, the State Department of Planning, Research and Statistics (SDPRS), and the Local Government Area (LGA). The system is configured to allow data entry by any of these units, and the workflows for the different data entry models that states can choose to implement are described in the guidelines. The guidelines provide a standard operating procedure for registering new health facilities and updating the list of health facilities already registered in the HFR. The procedure allows federal regulatory authorities and all responsible offices and agencies to have a standard process and procedures through which to engage with the HFR. The HFR system is designed to facilitate the addition of new facilities, deactivate facilities that are no longer operational, and update other facilities' information.