Ghana hosts DHIS2 tracker implementation management academy

The Ghana Health Service (GHS) in collaboration with the University of Oslo, on Monday, opened the District Health Information System (DHIS2) Tracker Implementation Management Academy, Level 2, to be held in Accra from March 09 to March 14, 2020.

The DHIS2 is the world’s largest health information management system platform in use by 67 low and middle-income countries for health system strengthening.

Dr Anthony Ofosu, the Deputy Director-General of the Ghana Health Service, at the opening ceremony, described the tracker as an android application which allows the registering and tracking of persons and things, for the purpose of generating accurate data.

He said the information could be captured while being offline and uploaded to the server when connectivity is present.

The Tracker Academy, Level 2, he said, aims to strengthen national and regional capacity to successfully set up, design and maintain DHIS2 systems.

Participants from countries including Ghana, Sierra Leone, Togo and Burkina Faso would share necessary knowledge and skills to implement cases based system and get their DHIS2 tracking instance up and running.

Dr Ofosu said the DHIS2 Tracker functionality was mostly applied in disease surveillance, in vertical programme cases management like nutrition, immunization, HIV, Tuberculosis (TB) and other patient levels, to collect individual data and produce reports for decision making and planning.

He said in Ghana, “We are certain and aware that without accurate, reliable and timely health information, the health sector would cease to exist”.

This, he said, was because health information continues to be the fulcrum upon which the health sector revolved as data is required for improving the provision of services, statistics for planning and managing services, as well as measurements for formulating and assessing health policy.

He said the use of modern information technology to address some of the bottlenecks in health information and indeed the sector as a whole was of particular interest to him and pledged his commitment to strengthen and improve upon the gains of using the DHIS2 and other platforms to drive the GHS in providing excellent health services and achieve the Sustainable Development Goals.

Dr Ofosu said to achieve these, there are a number of guiding principles which include capacity building for a better understanding of the available DHIS2 tools.

He also said the GHS was using platforms such as the DHIS2 and its related embedded application to facilitate information sharing across the continuum of care, citing the use of the eTracker, which was a system that allows service providers to schedule dates for the various interventions such as Maternal and Child Health, HIV and TB as an example.

Further to these, the GHS, he said, was to apply Information and Communication Technology for evidence-based management decision making and leverage it to promote transparency and accountability.

He said the use of the eTracker on the android device would facilitate the use of data for decision-making concerning taking care of clients at the lowest level of the health service such as the Community-Based Health Planning and Services (CHPS).

Using the tracker at the various levels to electronically collect individual records ensured that aggregated data on services reported were accurate and could easily be verified, he said.

Dr Ofosu said data synchronisation, installing and connecting the large existing database, has been challenging for users, especially “when we have to migrate from the old android to the new one with the over 2,000 facilities and more than 5,000 devices.

He commended the University of Oslo for supporting the GHS’s effort to digitalise health information at the lowest service delivery level.

Dr Mike Frost, the Product Manager, DHIS2 Tracker from the University of Oslo, said participants would be taken through topics such as the tracker planning, configuration management and long-term maintenance strategies and data access management among others.