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Oct 3, 2019

Three waves of data use among health workers: The experience of the Better Immunization Data Initiative in Tanzania and Zambia

Global Health: Science and Practice

Subjects: People, Policies, Practices, Products
Countries: Tanzania, Zambia

The governments of Tanzania and Zambia identified key data-related challenges affecting immunization service delivery including identifying children due for vaccines, time-consuming data entry processes, and inadequate resources. To address these challenges, since 2014, the countries have partnered with PATH’s Better Immunization Data (BID) Initiative to design and deploy a suite of data quality and use interventions. Two key aspects of the interventions were an electronic immunization registry and tools and practices to strengthen a culture of data use. As both countries deployed the interventions, three distinct changes in data use emerged organically. This article provides a detailed summary of these three phases or waves, based mostly on qualitative data or observation: (1) strengthening data collection using new data collection tools and processes and increasing efficiency of health workers; (2) improving data quality regarding accuracy and completeness; and (3) increasing use of data to take action to strengthen their work and for programmatic decision making. These waves clearly demonstrated the growing ability of health workers to move from data collectors to data analyzers who began to focus on the data quality and then the value of using the data in their day-to-day activities. For the full article, visit Global Health: Science and Practice.

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Aug 23, 2019

BLN Webinar | Cultivating a Data Use Culture: Lessons Learned from the BID Initiative

Subjects: People, Policies, Practices, Products
Countries: Tanzania, Zambia

The BID Learning Network invites you to view a webinar presentation titled “Cultivating a Data Use Culture: Lessons Learned from the BID Initiative.” Global and national stakeholders have acknowledged that routine immunization programs face significant challenges related to the collection, availability, and use of data for planning, management, and improvement of program performance. To address these critical data challenges, the BID Initiative worked with the governments of Tanzania and Zambia, to introduce a suite of interventions at facility and district levels.

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Aug 8, 2019

Electronic immunization registries in Tanzania and Zambia: Shaping a minimum viable product for scaled solutions

Frontiers in Public Health

Subjects: eHealth, Immunization Registry, People, Policies, Products
Countries: Tanzania, Zambia

As part of the work the BID Initiative undertook starting in 2013 to improve countries’ collection, quality, and use of immunization data, PATH partnered with countries to identify the critical requirements for an electronic immunization registry (EIR). An EIR became the core intervention to address the data challenges that countries faced but also presented complexities during the development process to ensure that it met the core needs of the users. The work began with collecting common system requirements from 10 sub-Saharan African countries; these requirements represented the countries’ vision of an ideal system to track individual child vaccination schedules and elements of supply chain. Through iterative development processes in both Tanzania and Zambia, the common requirements were modified and adapted to better fit the country contexts and users’ needs, as well as to be developed with the technology available at the time. This process happened across four different software platforms. The BID Initiative recently published a paper to Frontiers in Public Health that outlines the process undertaken and analyzes similarities and differences across the iterations of the EIR in both countries, culminating in the development of a registry in Zambia that includes the most critical aspects required for initially deploying the registry and embodies what could be considered the minimum viable product for an EIR. Read the full article in Frontiers in Public Heath.

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Jul 30, 2019

From fragile to resilient health systems: A journey to self-reliance

Subjects: eHealth, People, Practices
Countries: Global

Preventable disease, emerging infectious disease, extreme weather-related disasters due to urbanization and environmental degradation, and complications of pregnancy and childbirth still claim far too many lives and challenge the ability of health systems to cope. Meanwhile, shrinking investments, flat country health budgets, population pressures, and complex emergencies challenge the global ability to achieve the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals. Some of the world’s experts were convened by the United States Agency for International Development (USAID), which funds MEASURE Evaluation, to take on the topic at its conference in Washington, DC, in March 2019 at a meeting, From Fragile to Resilient Health Systems: A Journey to Self-Reliance. The group addressed multiple factors affecting how health systems are able to respond to routine health challenges and emergencies. The full report is available here.

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Jun 7, 2019

BLN Webinar | Immunization Data: Evidence for Action (IDEA) Review

Subjects: Packaging, Policies, Practices, Products
Countries: Global

The BID Learning Network invites you to view a webinar presentation on The Immunization Data: Evidence for Action (IDEA) Review. IDEA is a global synthesis of existing evidence aimed at increasing the use of high-quality data to improve immunization coverage. While advances in information technology have led to continuous increases in the amount of health data available, data remains an under-utilized resource in the design and implementation of immunization programs throughout the world. The IDEA Review identifies five proven strategies to improve data use and outlines how funders, policymakers, and program implementers can incorporate these best practices to improve the efficacy of regional and national immunization programs.

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May 6, 2019

BLN Webinar: The Data Use Partnership

Subjects: eHealth, eHealth architecture, People, Policies, Practices
Countries: Tanzania

The BID Learning Network invites you to view a webinar presentation on The Data Use Partnership. The use of reliable information from a well-designed health information system is critical for: decision-making during disease outbreaks; enhancing efficiency; fostering innovation; and ultimately ensuring improved health outcomes.  To this effect, the Government of the United Republic of Tanzania, with the support of PATH, has been implementing the Data Use Partnership (DUP) under the Ministry of Health’s transformative Digital Health Investment Road Map in health data systems and use. This is intended to close key gaps so that Tanzania can make informed decisions within public health to strengthen health outcomes.

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Feb 20, 2019

A health worker’s journey: Oliver’s life after the BID Initiative

Subjects: Packaging, People, Policies, Practices, Products

Oliver is a nurse in a busy, urban facility. She’d spend hours sifting through dense registry books to find which children were due for vaccination and ensuring she had enough stock. Once kids were immunized, Oliver and her team worked nights and weekends to report to the district. Unfortunately, the data went up, but rarely came back to help Oliver improve services. Through the BID Initiative, Oliver is a connected health worker motivated to use data to make her job easier.

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Feb 26, 2019

Redefining vaccination coverage and timeliness measures using electronic immunization registry data in low- and middle-income countries

Vaccine

Subjects: People, Policies, Practices, Products
Countries: Tanzania, Zambia

Vaccine coverage is routinely used as a performance indicator for immunization programs both at local and global levels. For many national immunization programs, there are challenges with accurately estimating vaccination coverage based on available data sources, however an increasing number of low- and middle-income countries (LMICs) have begun implementing electronic immunization registries to replace health facilities’ paper-based tools and aggregate reporting systems. These systems allow for more efficient capture and use of routinely reported individual-level data that can be used to calculate dose-specific and cohort vaccination coverage, replacing the commonly used aggregate routine health information system data. With these individual-level data immunization programs have the opportunity to redefine performance measures to enhance programmatic decision-making at all levels of the health system. In this commentary, we discuss how measures for assessing vaccination status and program performance can be redefined and recalculated using these data when generated at the health facility level and the implications of the use and availability of electronic individual-level data. Read the full article in Vaccine.

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Feb 20, 2019

BID Initiative briefs: Recommendations and lessons learned

PATH

Subjects: Packaging, People, Policies, Practices, Products

The BID Initiative is committed to sharing its learnings with others interested in improving immunization data quality and use. The following series of briefs summarizes our work alongside the governments of Tanzania and Zambia and our lessons and recommendations spanning seven key subject areas.

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