On December 5th, RHINO hosted a RHINO Forum where epidemiologist Dave Boone presented on MEASURE Evaluation’s LQAS Triage System. Description, slides and recording can be found below.
Description:
Tools and methods for assessing data quality have advanced significantly over the past 10 years driven in part by the need for good HIV/AIDS data to inform programs. However, most of the existing tools focus on aggregate data at sub-national levels. Very few measure the quality of data at the primary source—individual patient record level.
The LQAS Triage System is a tool and guidelines to facilitate checks at health facilities by district level supervisors to determine the quality of a set of records (e.g. those for a given health intervention at a health facility) based on a small sample of those records. Using a ‘classification’ method (i.e. Lot Quality Assurance Sampling, or LQAS), a small subset of records are sampled and evaluated for coherence/completeness. The results are then compared with a predetermined threshold of quality to identify ‘acceptable’ or ‘unacceptable’ quality for the larger record set, or ‘lot’. Unacceptable lots would be targeted for data quality improvement activities, for example, an exhaustive review of the records with update and/or completion of missing values.
When used as part of a routine system of data quality assurance this approach can save time, effort, and resources while yielding statistically sound results with quantifiable confidence and error. It can improve data in source documents allowing for improved patient management and, since data quality issues will be identified and resolved at the source, aggregate data reported to national programs will be more accurate.
Slides
Forum Recording
Questions? Email: therhinongo@gmail.com
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