Developing What Works Best
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Category: Practices

The power of knowledge sharing: BID launches encyclopedia of lessons spanning five-year journey

Jul 11, 2018

Growth and progress are rarely linear. They zig and zag, and at times, for every step forward, there are two steps back.  Buoyed by platforms like the BID Learning Network (BLN) and User Advisory Groups, the BID Initiative has embraced adaptive management and iterative, flexible program design that, over the last five years, have translated into many proud wins, some setbacks, and in turn, many lessons learned. In the hopes of sharing these we’ve compiled a comprehensive encyclopedia that documents our learnings throughout every stage of BID’s journey, from the design and testing of data quality and use interventions, on through implementation.

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BID Initiative digs into data at Teach to Reach workshop

May 23, 2018

Earlier this month, PATH and the BID Initiative participated in the “Teach to Reach: Innovative Methods for Immunization Training” workshop in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania from May 1-3. This three-day hands-on forum provided participants with an opportunity to use a design-thinking approach to tackle issues related to workforce performance within immunization programs. Approximately 100 participants from Tanzania, Ethiopia, Nigeria, Pakistan, India, and other global partners attended the workshop. BID participated in a number of sessions, including a well-received demonstration of the Tanzania Immunization Registry (TImR) during the opening night of the workshop.

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BID joins other digital initiatives and stakeholders at the ICT4D conference in Lusaka

May 9, 2018

The BID Initiative is headed to the ICT4D conference in Lusaka, Zambia this week for a chance to share and learn from others in the international development community. The conference convenes public, private and civil society organizations from across the international development community, including professionals with backgrounds in health, agriculture, finance, software development and data use and visualization, to name a few. This year, ICT4D is expected to attract more than 600 participants.

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Tanzania’s digital leadership drives partnerships with JSI, others

May 3, 2018

To be truly successful, data quality and use interventions must be scalable and able to be implemented across different settings with different people and partners beyond the BID Initiative. We are pleased to see these partnerships already taking shape with, for instance, the Catholic Medical Mission Board in Zambia’s Western Province, where the country’s electronic immunization registery is now in use in nine health facilities. Most recently, BID has collaborated with John Snow, Inc.’s (JSI) inSupply project to rollout TImR in Dodoma Region.

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Success rolls out in Southern Province

Mar 29, 2018

When Fred Njobvu, Provincial Coordinator for the BID Initiative in Zambia, looks back on January 2017, he wasn’t sure how the team would manage to roll out data quality and use interventions to the remaining districts in Southern Province. “We were running out of time in our grant,” remembers Fred, “and we needed to deliver interventions to the rest of the province.”

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Planning for compasses, not maps: BID celebrates a culture of learning, applies principles of adaptive management

Mar 16, 2018

Beatrice Owawa’s fingers dance across the screen of her tablet. She nimbly jumps from one window to the next, as she checks vaccine records and stock levels in the Tanzania Immunization Registry (TImR) at Usa River Health Center in Arusha, where she works as a medical attendant. When Beatrice pulls up a list of young patients who have recently missed their vaccines, she takes down their names and contact information and begins to call their caregivers. It may seem unremarkable, but the task of identifying patients who have fallen through the cracks used to be nearly impossible. Before TImR, Beatrice relied on paper registries to track “defaulters,” or patients who had missed a life-saving vaccine.

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Health workers in Tanzania become data use champions, set national example

Mar 1, 2018

When the BID Initiative first began working in Tanzania to introduce data quality and use interventions alongside the Ministry of Health, Community Development, Gender, Elderly and Children (MOHCDGEC), using data was not an everyday practice for most health care workers (HCWs). Many were more excited about the new devices such as the electronic immunization registry, than they were about using this information to improve decision-making. After implementing a change management strategy and thorough training led by district officials, HCWs began to realize the value of using data for decision-making. They began asking: Where do I find all the registered and vaccinated children? What should I do if a child misses a vaccine and I have a red alert on my coverage report? And how do I find children scheduled for vaccination the following month?

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Planning for compasses, not maps: The potential of adaptive management for international development

Feb 23, 2018

International development has historically followed a top-down process that implements a static set of interventions guided by standardized practices, even as programs fail and circumstances change. But progress isn’t always linear. It’s often two steps forward and one step back – and sometimes it moves sideways.

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BID partners with Catholic Medical Mission Board to expand to nine health facilities in Western Province

Feb 16, 2018

The Catholic Medical Mission Board (CMMB) is a charity that has operated in Zambia since 1965 with the specific mandate to deliver sustainable, quality health solutions to women and children. In Zambia, CMMB works in Central, Copperbelt, Luapula, Lusaka, Northwestern and Western provinces under four projects in the health and community development sectors. CMMB’s decision to partner with the Ministry of Health (MOH) and the BID Initiative to roll out the Zambia Electronic Immunisation Registry (ZEIR) to several health facilities in Western Province was a natural extension of its mission to benefit children in the province.

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Introducing Digital Square, an innovative co-investment approach that’s changing business-as-usual

Jan 30, 2018

Last month at the Global Digital Health Forum, I introduced Digital Square to many colleagues. “Digital Square is an innovative co-investment mechanism,” I said. “Yes, but what exactly does Digital Square do?” was a common response. Digital Square is a partnership of the world’s leading digital health experts from 30+ organizations and countries working together to strengthen digital health systems in emerging economies.

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