Description of Session
Right to Care (RTC) continues to implement innovations that decrease the time between data collection and data utilization for program improvement through technology and processes that shift the perspective of data from retrospective program analysis to that of real-time surveillance and response. RTC has partnered with Qode Health Solutions to implement the RTC Knowledge Centre (KC), a centralized data integration, warehousing, and access portal, that allows for global access to customizable analytics and visualizations of program data. The KC is integrates with existing in-country capabilities to increase operational efficiency. In South Africa, the KC has been used to track the performance of 254 facilities in two provinces supported by RTC HIV clinical operations. RTC collects daily data from automatically generated templates emailed to facility-based data collectors. The forms are emailed back and automatically processed into the central warehouse and populate the pre-programmed analytics and visualizations. Additional data from facility ART clinical data systems and the National Health Laboratory Service are matched and merged into a longitudinal patient record accessible in the Knowledge Center. This data is accessed during “situation room” data review meetings to stratify facilities into over/under- performing based on key indicators with targeted interventions prioritized to meet the identified gaps. During the “Siyenza” push in South Africa to rapidly accelerate program performance in HIV testing yield, case identification, and treatment initiation and retention, RTC increased average daily case finding by 35% from baseline and observed a 32% increase in average daily ART initiations. The accessibility of near real-time data at field and headquarters level allow for a rapid response to program performance concerns. Regularly holding management meetings to discuss the data contributes to the behavior change necessary to institute routine data for decision making and improve program performance at a very granular level.
