This strategy was developed to further support countries in their efforts to strengthen their capacity to implement key interventions to optimize their RHIS, enabling the monitoring and delivery of Health Care Services, especially Primary Health Care (PHC). The strategy proposes principles for integrated, interoperable, evidence-informed, aligned and partnership-based RHIS through five strategic goals with measurable interventions. The Strategy for optimising national RHIS is part of the World Health Organization's (WHO) SCORE (Survey, Count, Optimize, Review, Enable) for Health Data Technical Package to strengthen country health data systems and capacity to generate and use the information for health service management and monitoring of national and global targets. This strategy sets out to optimize RHIS and outlines a vision, supported by strategic goals, guiding principles, specific objectives and key interventions to improve health data collection, reporting, analyses and use at national, subnational (all levels below the national level including and not limited to public, private, nongovernmental) and community levels.

The publication is an international standard on the design and operation of an efficient and accurate vital statistics system at national level. It provides guidelines on collection, compiling and disseminating vital statistics. More specifically it contains (a) basic principles for a vital statistics system; (b) uses of vital statistics and civil registration records; (c) topics to be covered in a vital statistics system; (d) sources of vital statistics and how they function; (e) quality assurance in the vital statistics system and (f) strategies in improving civil registration and vital statistics systems in countries. It also informs policy makers and the general public on the importance of vital statistics and hence further improving the vital statistics system.