TY - JOUR
T1 - Health information system strengthening and malaria elimination in Papua New Guinea
AU - Rosewell, Alexander
AU - Makita, Leo
AU - Muscatello, David
AU - John, Lucy Ninmongo
AU - Bieb, Sibauk
AU - Hutton, Ross
AU - Ramamurthy, Sundar
AU - Shearman, Phil
N1 - Publisher Copyright:
© 2017 The Author(s).
PY - 2017/7/5
Y1 - 2017/7/5
N2 - Background: The objective of the study was to describe an m-health initiative to strengthen malaria surveillance in a 184-health facility, multi-province, project aimed at strengthening the National Health Information System (NHIS) in a country with fragmented malaria surveillance, striving towards enhanced control, pre-elimination. Methods: A remote-loading mobile application and secure online platform for health professionals was created to interface with the new system (eNHIS). A case-based malaria testing register was developed and integrated geo-coded households, villages and health facilities. A malaria programme management dashboard was created, with village-level malaria mapping tools, and statistical algorithms to identify malaria outbreaks. Results: Since its inception in 2015, 160,750 malaria testing records, including village of residence, have been reported to the eNHIS. These case-based, geo-coded malaria data are 100% complete, with a median data entry delay of 9 days from the date of testing. The system maps malaria to the village level in near real-time as well as the availability of treatment and diagnostics to health facility level. Data aggregation, analysis, outbreak detection, and reporting are automated. Conclusions: The study demonstrates that using mobile technologies and GIS in the capture and reporting of NHIS data in Papua New Guinea provides timely, high quality, geo-coded, case-based malaria data required for malaria elimination. The health systems strengthening approach of integrating malaria information management into the eNHIS optimizes sustainability and provides enormous flexibility to cater for future malaria programme needs.
AB - Background: The objective of the study was to describe an m-health initiative to strengthen malaria surveillance in a 184-health facility, multi-province, project aimed at strengthening the National Health Information System (NHIS) in a country with fragmented malaria surveillance, striving towards enhanced control, pre-elimination. Methods: A remote-loading mobile application and secure online platform for health professionals was created to interface with the new system (eNHIS). A case-based malaria testing register was developed and integrated geo-coded households, villages and health facilities. A malaria programme management dashboard was created, with village-level malaria mapping tools, and statistical algorithms to identify malaria outbreaks. Results: Since its inception in 2015, 160,750 malaria testing records, including village of residence, have been reported to the eNHIS. These case-based, geo-coded malaria data are 100% complete, with a median data entry delay of 9 days from the date of testing. The system maps malaria to the village level in near real-time as well as the availability of treatment and diagnostics to health facility level. Data aggregation, analysis, outbreak detection, and reporting are automated. Conclusions: The study demonstrates that using mobile technologies and GIS in the capture and reporting of NHIS data in Papua New Guinea provides timely, high quality, geo-coded, case-based malaria data required for malaria elimination. The health systems strengthening approach of integrating malaria information management into the eNHIS optimizes sustainability and provides enormous flexibility to cater for future malaria programme needs.
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85021771779&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1186/s12936-017-1910-0
DO - 10.1186/s12936-017-1910-0
M3 - Article
SN - 1475-2875
VL - 16
JO - Malaria Journal
JF - Malaria Journal
IS - 1
M1 - 278
ER -