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BID analytics: Leveraging data from electronic immunization registries for meaningful insights

By By Emily Carnahan, Senior Monitoring, Evaluation and Learning Officer, BID Initiative

Aug 9, 2018

Posted in

Photo: PATH/Trevor Snapp. Electronic immunization registries unlock the power of individual-level data.

The electronic immunization registries (EIRs) introduced under the BID Initiative in Tanzania and Zambia have now been scaled to 1,571 health facilities (1,273 in Tanzania; 298 in Zambia). Every day health workers are registering new children into the EIRs and capturing their birth date, their caregiver’s contact information, and the dates they received their last vaccine. More than 467,105 children have been registered into the Tanzania Immunization Registry (TImR) and more than 96,383 children have been registered into the Zambia Electronic Immunization Registry (ZEIR). That’s a lot of data that was previously unavailable above the facility level. But what can we learn from this new information?

Under both countries’ legacy systems, which use traditional paper-based forms, data about each individual child is only retained at the facility level. The EIR unlocks the power of this individual-level data since it is now saved in a database where it can be used to analyze and explain trends or patterns in health service delivery. This is the goal of the BID analytics team, a working group within the BID Initiative that leverages the data captured through the EIRs to answer priority questions about Tanzania’s and Zambia’s national immunization programs.

The BID analytics team is a group of diverse PATH staff who sit in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, Lusaka, Zambia, and Seattle, Washington. The team members bring different perspectives to this work, through their backgrounds in project implementation, monitoring and evaluation, statistical analysis, data management, mathematical modeling, and business analytics.

The BID analytics workstream began as the EIRs were rolled out in Tanzania and Zambia. Now, we have resources for a short analysis sprint. Over four months, between July and October, we plan to tackle some of the most important questions to the immunization sector using the data collected in both EIRs. The priority questions for analysis are:

  • What does it take to roll out EIRs in different settings?
  • What improvements in efficiency, coverage, timeliness, and data quality have been observed as a result of BID?
  • What does it take to move from pilot to scale?
  • Why are children vaccinated late and why do they miss vaccines?
  • Which districts or facilities should we focus performance management activities on?

Some of these questions have emerged from global audiences and others have come directly from country stakeholders and user advisory group members. The BID analytics team plans to answer these questions with the data available from TImR and ZEIR and widely share the results through manuscripts and engagement with country stakeholders. Follow our blog for more updates from the BID analytics team over the next few months.

One thought on “BID analytics: Leveraging data from electronic immunization registries for meaningful insights”

  1. Robert DAVIS says:

    We need unit costings to get an idea of financial sustainability.

    Any costing analysis should look at potential savings if printed forms and registers are eliminated. This means looking at both agency and government expenditure on printing.

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