Category: Policies & Practices
Humanizing data: Permanent Secretary of Tanzania discusses road map to better health
Apr 13, 2017
As the African proverb reads: If you want to go fast, go alone. If you want to go far, go together. When the Government of Tanzania first introduced its eHealth Strategy in 2013, it knew the success of the ambitious mandate depended on forging strong partnerships. The effort to adopt and apply information communication technology (ICT) throughout the health sector could transform the delivery of quality healthcare services, but not without careful investments and coordination across sectors and partners.
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Data-use tools catching on in health facilities
Mar 21, 2017
Since November 2016, the BID Initiative has been rolling out data use interventions in Livingstone and Kazungula districts of Southern Province to help build a culture of data use in the health service. The interventions, such as the data use guide and supportive supervision, have been well-received in the health facilities, with some facilities recording early successes with the tools.
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Empowering Immunization Mentors in Tanzania
Mar 15, 2017
We are constantly learning and tailoring our approach to more effectively and efficiently roll out BID interventions. As we began implementing in Tanzania, we saw the need to adjust our strategy based on lessons learned from the early district implementations.
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Health care’s next revolution: digitized data to transform lives
Mar 9, 2017
In a world with many tough problems, getting good data is a solvable first step. The call for better global health data has been steadily getting louder. In a recent article, Melinda Gates noted that while the quality and use of these data are improving, significant work remains.
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OpenLMIS Version 3 – A Global Achievement
Mar 2, 2017
The release of OpenLMIS version 3 is truly something to celebrate – it is the result of an extraordinary collaboration of organizations and individuals around the world. Teams from multiple countries contributed technical requirements, defined business processes, and wrote countless hours of code for the latest iteration of OpenLMIS, a powerful, enterprise class logistics management information system (LMIS).
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Tanzania has set its digital health road map and is revving its engine, ready to drive forward.
Mar 1, 2017
At the core of Tanzania’s strategy to achieve the Sustainable Development Goals is a vision of all health workers’ ability to access and meaningfully use the information they need to make the best decisions to improve health.
Read MoreSustainability: Better data beyond the BID Initiative
Feb 8, 2017
The BID Initiative’s objective is to improve data quality, use, and collection in the Zambian immunisation programme with the aim of improving the health outcomes of children. Making changes in the way health service staff use their data to make decisions is imperative, but once those changes and innovations are implemented, the government must ensure they are fully integrated into the day-to-day functions of their service delivery, with the budgetary and institutional commitments to support and maintain those functions
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Rolling out change management interventions in Zambia
Jan 26, 2017
Since 2014, the BID Initiative has worked closely with the Ministry of Health (MOH) in Zambia to improve immunization data quality and use. To reach an immunization coverage of 90%, both groups knew that strengthening data collection, quality, and use would be critical.
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Transforming behavior and culture
Jan 19, 2017
The BID Learning Network convened in Uganda in November for a design collaborative meeting focused on change management. Participants from across sub-Saharan Africa explored the Kotter’s 8-Step Change Model and how to transform behaviors and organizational cultures; learned from each another and BID Initiative experiences on what has been successful and challenging when implementing changes; and identified practical tools and strategies to facilitate change management.
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Diving into data use in 2017
Jan 17, 2017
As we kick off a new year, we are encouraged by the momentum around data use for decision making in global health. Effective data use among health workers is a strong pillar of the BID Initiative and critical for the success of the tools we are implementing.
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