A personnel information system that was being used for human resource management in Uttar Pradesh was missing about 40% of the total health workforce in the state’s public health system and lacked critical components compared to global standards.

The customization of an electronic human resource management system (eHRMS) aimed to ensure coverage of the health workforce, improve data quality, and increase the use of data for planning and decision-making.

After the eHRMS roll-out, registration of the entire health workforce increased, vacancies of some critical cadres in community health centers and primary health centers decreased, interoperability with other health information systems increased efficiency and reduced duplication of effort, and data quality improved.

The state of Uttar Pradesh (UP), India, has one of the largest single public health systems globally, serving about 235 million people through more than 30,000 public health facilities with approximately 160,000 health personnel. Yet, the UP health system has a shortfall of public health facilities to meet the population’s needs, a shortage of clinical and nonclinical health personnel, inequitable distribution of existing health personnel, and low utilization of public health facilities. A robust and effective electronic human resource management system (eHRMS) that provides real-time information about the lifecycle of all health professionals in UP may aid in improving the health workforce, resulting in better health services and improved health outcomes. The Government of UP rolled out Manav Sampada, a comprehensive eHRMS that complied with global norms and requirements. We describe the implementation of Manav Sampada at scale and elaborate on key learnings and adoption strategies. Manav Sampada was based on key principles of integration and data-sharing with other digital systems, included functional components, a minimum dataset, used a lifecycle-based approach, and a workflow-based system, all of which acted to improve human resource data quality. The eHRMS emerged as a valuable tool for key stakeholders in reviewing worker performance, identifying skill-building needs, and allocating resources for training, leading to improved availability and equity in the distribution of a few critical cadres. The eHRMS in UP is well positioned to become an integral part of the Ayushman Bharat Digital Mission, the backbone of India’s integrated digital health infrastructure. Linking eHRMS to a planned beneficiary-centric unitized health service delivery system (capturing information at the individual level rather than the aggregate level) will enable the measurement of service delivery and quality, leading to improved workforce management.

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