April 2016 Meeting Recap - Data for Health Decision Making
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We d like to thank you for those who participated in the April meeting which highlighted four diverse presentations about data use of digital technologies We had about 25 participants attend in person and another 50 join remotely For those of you unable to participate we wanted to send you a few highlights from the presentations and Q A session Presentation by Tara Nutely from MEASURE Evaluation Tara started out the meeting providing an overview of data use an important buildilng block for health systems Though we ve done a lot to collect more and better data over the years we still have work to do to use that data to improve service areas Tara highlighted 8 steps as part of the data use process 1 Assess data use context 2 Engage data user and data producers in data use 3 Identify information needs 4 Improve data quality 5 Improve data availability access synthesis and content 6 Build data use core competencies 7 Strengthen organization infrastructure 8 Evaluation and communicate successes This systems approach is important to ensuring data is used Most of our work in digital health centers around number 5 Data Availability Here is where a lot of our work in interoperability data warehousing dashboards etc come together Perhaps the most important takeaway is to make sure that data responds to decision making needs Tara mentioned that a webinar will take place at 11AM on April 27 about Data Visualization for Decision Making To find out more information and register visit the MEASURE Evaluation website here http www cpc unc edu measure resources events data visualization for decision making in hiv programs Presentation by Ismail Wadembere IntraHealth Uganda IntraHealth s Ismail presented an overview iHRIS the open source software that has been rolled out across the country to help support policy and advocacy for human resources for health HRH The goal of iHRIS is to make data available and help HRH decision making iHRIS is currently used to capture data about health worker training iHRIS Train health worker registration and licensure iHRIS Qualify and iHRIS deployment iHRIS Manage This data has been used in many ways For example following an HRH audit to identify how many posts were needed in each district data was run in iHRIS to illustrate the gaps in health workers by county and by facility This data was used to advocate for funding and recruitment of over 7 200 health workers across the country Here is another example to provide insight on health worker licensure for doctors a short code was established so that anyone could SMS the name of the provider and within minutes they d receive an SMS confirming if they are registered with the Medical Council and if the licensure is up to date This motivated a lot of health workers to update their licensure and ensure their licensure and registration records were correct Ismail closed the session highlighting that all of the iHRIS data is housed in a knowledge management portal at the MOH a key point that ensures HRH data is accessible and shared throughout the Ministry Presentation by Amanda Berman from the Johns Hopkins Center for Communication Programs Amanda gave an overview of two projects that used maps and GIS in decision making During the Ebola outbreak in Liberia her team worked with GeoPoll to send SMS surveys throughout the country to help identify exactly the communication messages and materials that were needed to inform the public about Ebola and how to protect themselves This data was mapped out by county and used as the CCP team developed materials Through the Nigeria Urban Reproductive Health Initiative she and the team used maps to highlight data from an evaluation They were able to see by state percentage of health centers offering family planning reproductive health services Some of the key lessons learned that Amanda highlighted were that when using mobile phones to collect data vis SMS consider the wording of your message so you get more bang of your buck She also noted that one of the successes in the Nigeria program was that they knew they would be using GIS to represent their data form the beginning so they could consider that in their data design and collection processes There was a lively discussion post presentation including comments about women s true access to mobile phones in certain cultures as well as how mobile phone signal penetration has been a challenge in Liberia during the Ebola outbreak Presentation by Neal Lesh from Dimagi Our last presenter Neal gave a talk about the perspective from Dimagi on how digital tools can improve health His team has been looking into comparisons of programs that used digital tools and those that did not They ve also been evaluation how CommCare the open source mobile platform application tool has contributed to the growing evidence base of mobile technology and health improvement Neal mentioned that they are scaling their CommCare work around the world For example 9 000 new users will be added to an MNCH application in Guatemala 90 000 CHWs in 8 states in India will start using Commcare and a program with UNICEF is expanding the application to 12 000 midwives in Myanmar Neal and his team have looked at how use of Commcare has evolved over the time of a project We all know that one of the challenges is sustaining digital tools something important if we want impact over time Neal and his team are committed to understanding how static solutions can turn into dynamic systems A study will be launched at the ICTD 2016 conference next month about challenges and opportunities in creating dynamic digital health solutions We ll be sure the results are shared through this listserv We also want to share a great new resource published this month The mHealth Evidence Review and Assessment mERA checklist This work marks the culmination of three years of multi institutional collaborations to determine standards for reporting digital health evidence The authors hope that the systematic use of this checklist to report research findings will help improve the quality of digital health evidence We look forward to seeing you on May 20 for our next Global Digital Health Network meeting featuring Closed User Groups Our featured presenters will be Akuba Dollphyne from Grameen Foundation Nandini Jayarajan from CCP Aly Azhar from VaxTrac and Dr Christoph Pimmer from the University of Applied Sciences and Arts Northwestern Switzerland School of Business Institute for Information Systems Click here to register as an in person or virtual participant
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Monthly Meeting Minutes, April 2016