Hi Theo, it’s the first time I hear of EDAP, could you share the web address?
I would like to share with you an example of how data quality standards are incorporated in selected hospitals in Uganda. These sites receive financial aid from USAID, so five DQ standards required by the agency need to be monitored on a regular basis. For this purpose, SOPs have been designed, and the field teams conduct regular supportive supervision visits in which selected data elements are recalculated as per their definition, figures are reviewed for consistency, e.g. consistency between summary reports and the DHIS2 reports, and timeliness is reinforced.
Ensuring quality of data is becoming a challenge, especially when donors’ information needs change constantly. An example of this are the PEPFAR HIV indicators and the disaggregates (age group, sex, key population, test results, entry points, etc.) and frequency of reporting that change every year (or even more often) leading to the creation of supplemental reporting systems and adding a considerable burden to data staff who already barely manage to fulfill different information needs and reporting requirements.
Once data has been submitted officially to DHIS2, datasets are extracted, standardized using USAID’s open data quality standards, and analyzed/shared using Tableau. Internal controls have been incorporated to ensure that indicators are calculated correctly and that they are consistent with what has been reported to the official system and the donor.
Again, meaningful data dissemination is a challenge since most systems focus on reporting and not identifying beforehand ‘what other information is needed and how it should be presented for the different audiences at each level of the system’.
