Snowball Effect of Data Competition in Mali

Author(s): MEASURE Evaluation

Year: 2019

Abstract:

In 2018, Mali held a friendly competition among health facilities to motivate all levels of the health system to improve the quality of health data and to make strategic use of those data. The first competition came as Mali had successfully adopted and deployed the District Health Information Software, version 2 (DHIS2) platform for management of health data across the health system.

What began in 2018 as a data quality incentive designed by the Mali Ministry of Health (MOH) has won enthusiastic adoption by health providers across the health system. Not only has it attracted more competitors (from 2018 to the second competition in 2019), it also has demonstrably improved the quality of health data across the board. The MOH intends to institutionalize the competition, has included it in its priority health management information system (HMIS) activities, and is planning a third competition in 2020.

In 2018, the competition rewarded eight health facilities (five community health centers [CSCom], two health districts [CSRef], and one hospital) for improving their data quality from 2017 to 2018. In 2019, the MOH rewarded 16 health facilities (10 CSCom, four CSRef, and two hospitals). Achievement in meeting the criteria for judging data quality (100% data completeness and 80% timeliness) improved significantly from the 2018 competition to the 2019 competition and the number of facilities competing grew from 65 in 2018 to 308 in 2019 (an almost fivefold increase). This brief shares more.

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French