Lessons in Health Information System Strengthening: What Worked in the Democratic Republic of the Congo

Author(s): MEASURE Evaluation

Year: 2019

Abstract:

Since 2014, MEASURE Evaluation has supported the National Malaria Control Program (NMCP) of the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) to streamline and improve malaria data collection, reporting, management, and use, at all levels of the health system. Our approach prioritized building local capacity within nine provinces targeted by the President’s Malaria Initiative (PMI). It was driven by the need to intervene where data are generated, to promote good-quality data that could be used to make policy and service delivery decisions.

Our support has contributed to the following improvements:

• Rollout of the electronic routine health information platform, DHIS 2, in all 178 health zones in nine PMI-targeted provinces
• More than 400 staff trained at the national, provincial, health zone, and health facility levels in areas such as monitoring and evaluation (M&E) and the collection, reporting, and analysis of data
• Development of HIS management resources such as the NMCP’s strategic and M&E plans, malaria M&E guidelines, and data collection tools
• Development of nationally validated indicators and an NMCP central database, both of which are integrated in DHIS 2
• Establishment of 77 centers of excellence (COEs) 1 in three PMI provinces
• Implementation of (1) supportive supervision visits at the health facility, health zone, and provincial levels; (2) establishment of the MEASURE Evaluation Routine Data Quality Assessment (RDQA) Tool as a primary method to assess quality of routine data at the health zone and facility levels; and (3) data review meetings at all levels of the health system
• Improved routine data timeliness and completeness at the health facility (COEs) and provincial level (PMI targeted provinces)
• Development of M&E technical working groups and a malaria task force at the national and provincial levels to coordinate M&E and surveillance activities, address service delivery priorities, and improve data quality

Because MEASURE Evaluation Phase IV is coming to a close, we sought to document the outcomes of our work with the NMCP, by interviewing staff at the national, provincial, health zone, and health facility levels. The objective of this document is to summarize lessons learned through this data collection effort and highlight effective health information system (HIS) strengthening interventions and their outcomes in the DRC.