Health Service Data
Regular, reliable data from health facilities and the resource systems
that support them are central to ensuring availability and quality of
health services.
Health facility data support clinical management of patients, disease
monitoring, facility management, health sector planning, and monitoring
of service coverage and performance. In the wake of COVID-19, these data
will be invaluable to assess the impact on health workforce capacity
and essential services to improve preparedness going forward.
Routine Health Information Systems (RHIS)
RHIS collect health service data directly from the health facilities, by the health care workers. They provides frequent (e.g. monthly) and/or almost real-time information on service performance and quality at all levels of the health system, enabling regular progress monitoring and timely identification of problems and address them.
RHIS creates an integrated environment for programme specific and cross-cutting data use. The Toolkit for analysis and use of routine health facility data provides standards and guidance for data collection, analysis of RHIS data for monitoring progress
of individual health programmes as well as integrated analysis for general health service management.
Digital health data packages
Digital technology plays an increasingly crucial role in health, especially in health information systems that enable a reduction in the reporting burden for health care staff and facilitate the effective use of data for decision making. The development of digital tools to help collect and report health data has proved to be a key need, especially in the era of the COVID-19 pandemic. WHO has worked with multiple partners to enable digitalisation of internationally recommended data standards for convenient and effective application in countries.
The WHO Digital Health Packages incorporate the RHIS data standards for key programmes such as immunization, HIV, TB, malaria and RMNCAH and continue to incorporate others. The packages also include data quality review (DQR) metrics and analytics as well as the Startup Mortality List (SMoL) that simplifies the recording of cause-of-death information using a list of the most common causes from ICD-10.
The digital health packages enable countries that use DHIS2 to install and adapt the WHO recommended standards as part of their RHIS, including the automated analytical outputs and dashboards for strengthening data visualization and use.
Health facility assessments
Availability and quality of health services are integral to universal health coverage (UHC) and contribute to achieving the sustainable development goals (SDGs). The harmonized health facility assessment (HHFA) modules represent a comprehensive external review tool that assesses whether health facilities have the appropriate systems in place to deliver services at required standards of quality. A critical aim of the HHFA is to align support among programmes and partners for a single system of high-quality facility assessments within a country.
Data quality assurance
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Meaningful analysis of health facility data requires insights into the quality of the data. Yet, systematic data quality assurance mechanisms, both as routine and periodic assessments, are often lacking in routine health facility data systems. Data quality can be a challenge also because health care workers do not always have the time or the required forms or computers, or training to record individual patient information and aggregation. The Data Quality Assurance toolkit is designed to assess the quality of data generated by information system(s) based in health facilities and to support the routine, and periodic data quality review and improvement process. It promotes the institutionalization of data quality review as a data quality assurance mechanism in a country.
Health service resources
A well-functioning health system is built on having trained and motivated health workers, a well-maintained infrastructure, and a reliable supply of medicines and technologies, backed by adequate funding, strong health plans and evidence-based policies.
Training - Curriculum
To ensure that the standards and toolkits developed by WHO and partners are effectively disseminated and applied, building capacity for those directly managing and or implementing the globally recommended standards and tools also requires standard training materials and guidance. The training resources are designed as short courses with structured contents, guidance for facilitators and participants, handouts and reference materials.
Resources