Matt Berg: The catalytic potential of rapid, iterative software development
Jan 31, 2019
Posted in Packaging, People, Policies & Practices, Products
Matt Berg, the CEO of Ona, a Nairobi- and Vermont-based technology company, remembers one of the first immunization clinics he witnessed in Livingstone, Zambia. As a long queue of patients waited to be vaccinated, three health workers and one community health volunteer busied themselves with that day’s work. The community health volunteer weighed children, placing infants into a hanging canvas scale. Two nurses sat at a desk, immunization-related papers fanned out before them. As one pored over a paper registry, the other recorded data on a tally sheet and updated the child’s immunization card. A third nurse administered vaccines inside the clinic.
Read More
Uganda’s immunization program officials and civil society representatives share experiences, learn about Tanzania’s electronic immunization system
Dec 26, 2018
Posted in Packaging, People, Policies & Practices, Products
Uganda, like many other countries in Sub-Saharan Africa faces a number of health-related challenges. At the same time, the country has dramatically improved health outcomes through several initiatives, particularly for maternal and child health. As a signatory to the Addis Declaration on Immunization, Uganda has taken measures to improve immunization outcomes, including establishing an immunization law, increasing domestic financing, and embracing innovations, such as electronic immunization systems.
Read More
DRC delegates journey to Tanzania to learn about the benefits of digital innovation for closing the immunization gap
Dec 11, 2018
Posted in Policies & Practices
In early September, PATH staff from Kenya, Uganda, and the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), joined representatives from National Expanded Programs for Immunization (EPI), civil society representatives, and other government stakeholders for an enriching data learning trip in Tanzania. Facilitated by PATH, the learning trip was hosted by the Government of Tanzania through the Arusha Region, Ministry of Health staff, and PATH’s BID Initiative, with support from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.
Read More
BID by the numbers: New data reveals time-savings, more empowered decision-making among health workers
Nov 29, 2018
Posted in Monitoring & Evaluation, People, Policies & Practices, Products
Beatrice Owawa is a Reproductive and Child Health nurse at the Usa River Health Center in Tanzania, one of more than 1,500 health facilities implementing data quality and use interventions across Tanzania and Zambia in partnership with the BID Initiative. As she toggles between dashboards on her tablet, you would never know it, but Beatrice used to depend on pen and paper for documenting her facility’s immunization clinics.
Read More
Dr. Eddie Mukooyo: BID Learning Network member recounts camaraderie, opportunity of peer learning
Nov 27, 2018
Posted in Packaging, People, Policies & Practices, Products
The whole is greater than the sum of its parts. This is how Dr. Eddie Mukooyo Sefuluya, a BID Learning Network (BLN) member and Chairperson for the Uganda AIDS Commission, describes the peer learning network that for the last five years has tackled some of the most complex challenges facing health information systems—and developed its most promising solutions. The BLN comprises more than 20 countries in sub-Saharan Africa. With conversation topics ranging from the design of patient registers to community-based early warning systems for Ebola outbreaks, the BLN allows participants to connect, learn, and collaborate in ways that advance their own discrete efforts, while also accelerating the pace of progress for all.
Read More
BID Story launches celebrating the transformative power of data and country ownership
Nov 14, 2018
Posted in News, People, Policies & Practices, Products
Five years. Two electronic immunization registries (EIRs). Nineteen design countries who regularly input to the BID Learning Network. Study visits to Benin and Chile to learn from others implementing health information systems. More than half a million children registered in both EIRs, and 1,580 health facilities implementing data quality and use interventions, allowing health workers to collect, analyze, and act upon immunization data in real time.
Read More
Good data saves lives: How digital record-keeping is helping transform immunisation in Tanzania
Oct 25, 2018
Posted in News, People, Policies & Practices, Practices
In the harsh, dry highland plains of the Ngorongoro region of Tanzania stands a small red tent – a tiny speck of colour in an otherwise dusty, lifeless landscape. It can be seen from several kilometres away, and that is precisely the point. Because even before Bakari Shemagembe, the local Assistant Medical Officer, and his team have finished setting up around the tent, the local Maasai tribespeople start to arrive, trickling in from all directions, drawn towards this beacon.
Read More
Reflections from the inaugural OpenHIE Community Meeting: Learning, sharing, growing, and innovating
Oct 3, 2018
Posted in News, Policies & Practices, Products
Organizing an international five-day meeting for a diverse digital health community is no easy task. There are venues to secure, agendas to develop, and invitation letters to draft. Yet the leaders and innovators of the OpenHIE community were driven to ensure that we all had a place where we could gather to get to know and learn from each other about health information exchange.
Read More
BID launches generic tools to help other likeminded countries implement data quality and use interventions
Sep 14, 2018
Posted in Packaging, Practices
Though data quality and use interventions must be tailored to meet the different needs of countries and health contexts, many implementation tools can be recycled, modified, and reapplied. BID is committed to helping other countries avoid the costly and time-consuming ramp-up often required of projects, and so has developed a generic set of tools based on its experience in Tanzania and Zambia.
Read More
New immunization data reveals state of the field and the important role of data in vaccination
Aug 24, 2018
Posted in Monitoring & Evaluation, News, Policies & Practices
Last month, the World Health Organization (WHO) released new immunization data from 2017 that reveals global progress toward immunization targets, and where countries and stakeholders are still falling short. Nine in 10 infants were vaccinated last year, or 123 million babies worldwide. But since 2015, the percentage of children around the world who have received the full three-dose course of diphtheria-tetanus-pertussis (DTP3), has leveled out at 85 percent. DTP3 is a key indicator of immunization program performance.
Read More